Lurie Children’s Receives NIH Support to Study How Control of Breathing Impacts Premature Babies’ Respiratory and Neurologic Outcomes

Newswise — Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago was selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Prematurity-Related Ventilatory Control (Pre-Vent) study consortium. Physicians and researchers at Lurie Children’s will partner with investigators from other leading national hospitals to expand knowledge of neurorespiratory maturation in premature infants. Lurie Children’s site-specific study will investigate how autonomic, neurologic control of breathing matures in infants born at less than 29 weeks of gestation. Lurie Children’s will receive approximately $2.5 million over five years to pursue its site-specific study, as well as program-wide projects. “This study builds on our previous findings that neural circuits regulating breathing control are altered in preterm infants, suggesting that lung immaturity is not the only factor in the chronic respiratory diseases that are common in these infants,” said Aaron Hamvas, MD, Co-Principal Investigator at Lurie Children’s, Division Head of Neonatology, the Raymond & Hazel Speck Berry Professor in Neonatology and Professor of Pediatrics-Neonatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The breathing control circuits are embedded in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which functions automatically to regulate virtually all major organ systems. The newly awarded NIH study will monitor autonomic biomarkers in order to better understand how neurologic control of breathing functions and matures in the preterm infant’s first year of life. The study also will evaluate the role these biomarkers play in breathing instability and other common outcomes of very premature birth, including impaired neuromotor development. Lurie Children’s Center for Autonomic Medicine in Pediatrics (CAMP) – the first of its kind in the world – has unique expertise and sophisticated technology to measure ANS function and treat conditions in which it is dysregulated. “In this study, we will measure and analyze biomarkers from interrelated autonomic systems in connection to the infant’s clinical and physiologic profile,” said Debra Weese-Mayer, MD, Co-Principal Investigator at Lurie Children’s who heads the Center for Autonomic Medicine in Pediatrics and is the Beatrice Cummings Mayer Professor in Pediatric Autonomic Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “These real-time integrated physiologic measurements of autonomic dysregulation can help us identify preemies at risk so we can intervene earlier and improve outcomes.” The ultimate goal of the Pre-Vent study consortium is to gain greater insight into the development of prematurity-related chronic respiratory disease, identify breathing and heart rate patterns that predict adverse outcomes, and discover targets for new prevention and treatment strategies. The multidisciplinary group at Lurie Children’s involved in this study includes individuals from Neonatology, the Center for Autonomic Medicine in Pediatrics, Physical Therapy and the Biostatistics Collaboration Center in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Research at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is conducted through the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute. The Manne Research Institute is focused on improving child health, transforming pediatric medicine and ensuring healthier futures through the relentless pursuit of knowledge. Lurie Children’s is ranked as one of the nation’s top children’s hospitals in the U.S.News & World Report. It is the pediatric training ground for Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Last year, the hospital served more than 174,000 children from 50 states and 48 countries.