Lifespan Brain Health Trajectories in Congenital Heart Disease: the role of sex & gender
Project Overview
Congenital heart disease (“CHD”) refers to problems with heart structure and function that begin at birth. People with CHD are now living longer than ever before because of medical and surgical advances. CHD can be linked to issues with brain health. This includes issues with brain development and growth at birth linked to heart development issues. It can also include problems that develop over time due to heart issues with aging, including strokes, low blood and oxygen supply to the brain, and medical procedures and surgeries. This also includes issues related to mental health and well-being. How these experiences and risks are different between men and women is also not known. We will look at how brain health changes throughout life in CHD and whether there are different considerations for men and women. We will do this in three main ways: (1) combining brain scan studies in people with CHD of different ages and looking for trends by age and sex, (2) studying 8-year-old children with CHD who had brain scans as infants and seeing what factors have affected their brain health status over time, (3) special mathematical approaches (“network analysis”) to look at how medical factors interact with life experiences to influence brain health. We expect that this work will generate new knowledge that will help to improve treatment and prevention to improve brain health in CHD.
Principal Investigator
Thalia Field , University of British Columbia
Partners and Donors
Heart and Stroke Foundation