The “Learning” Birth Cohort: A New Approach to Catalyze Preventative Psychiatry

Converging evidence indicates the importance of prenatal life to subsequent risk for psychopathology across the lifespan, suggesting that potential intervention during this period of heightened brain plasticity may also have enduring protective effects. We describe a novel experimental approach, the "learning" birth cohort, that couples observational and interventional methods over multiple investigation cycles, wherein high-throughput data collected in each wave are canvassed to discover, develop, and implement new interventions in subsequent waves. As illustrated, we can harness both family- and population-level data to effect iterative changes in the prenatal environment, with the goal of improved neurodevelopmental outcomes.