Joseph O'Neill
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Children exposed to alcohol before birth often grow up with lifelong problems with attention, hyperactivity and planning. These symptoms resemble attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but unlike ADHD, prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) often does not respond to stimulant medications or other therapies.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Psychology
- Topics
prenatal alcohol exposure
fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
trigeminal nerve stimulation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Determine whether trigeminal nerve stimulation, a noninvasive facial nerve stimulation therapy cleared for ADHD, is feasible for children with prenatal alcohol exposure, measuring compliance, side effects and early signs of symptom relief in a pilot phase.
- Test whether TNS reduces inattention, hyperactivity and executive dysfunction in children with prenatal alcohol exposure, using a double-blind, sham-controlled randomized clinical trial.
- Use multiple types of brain MRI before and after treatment to test whether TNS changes tissue properties in three candidate brain regions previously found to differ in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.
- Test whether brain MRI measures taken before treatment can predict which children with prenatal alcohol exposure respond to TNS, as a prognostic marker.
More about the research
Hundreds of thousands of children in the US are affected, so new treatments are urgently needed.
Why it matters
Children with prenatal alcohol exposure have few effective treatments for their attention and hyperactivity problems. If trigeminal nerve stimulation proves effective, it could offer a noninvasive, low-risk option for these children and their families. Brain imaging results could also reveal how this emerging therapy works and help predict which patients will benefit.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sarah Mattson Weller
San Diego State University, CA·Psychology
Measure how accurately the FASD-Tree, a web tool recording physical and behavioral features, and BRAIN-online, a web-based cognitive test, classify children aged 6–17 with FASD, alone and combined, by sensitivity and specificity.
Erin Milligan
University of New Mexico, NM·Neuroscience
Test whether circular RNAs (circRNAs), non-coding RNAs that regulate genes, disrupted by prenatal alcohol exposure are necessary and sufficient for working-memory deficits triggered by minor stressors in adolescent mice.
Michael A Mooney
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Psychology
Map how inattention, hyperactivity-impulsivity, irritability, executive functioning, vigilance and reward delay discounting co-develop from ages 7–19, using longitudinal data from the Oregon-ADHD-1000 and ABCD cohorts.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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