Scientific Publications

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Preterm infants with low birthweight are at heightened risk of developmental sequelae, including neurological and cognitive dysfunction that can persist into adolescence or adulthood. In addition, preterm birth and low birthweight can provoke changes in endocrine and metabolic processes that likely impact brain health throughout development. However, few studies have examined associations among birthweight, pubertal endocrine process, long-term neurological and cognitive development.

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Due to limitations of categorical definitions of mental illness, there is a need for quantitative empirical investigations of the dimensional structure of psychopathology. Using exploratory bifactor methods, this study investigated a comprehensive and representative structure of psychopathology in children to better understand how psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms, impulsivity, and sensitivity to reward and punishment, may be integrated into extant general factor models of psychopathology.

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Individual differences in cognitive performance in childhood are a key predictor of significant life outcomes such as educational attainment and mental health. Differences in cognitive ability are governed in part by variations in brain structure. However, studies commonly focus on either grey or white matter metrics in humans, leaving open the key question as to whether grey or white matter microstructure play distinct or complementary roles supporting cognitive performance.To compare the role of grey and white matter in supporting cognitive performance, we used regularized structural equation models to predict cognitive performance with grey and white matter measures. Specifically, we compared how grey matter (volume, cortical thickness and surface area) and white matter measures (volume, fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity) predicted individual differences in cognitive performance. The models were tested in 11,876 children (ABCD Study, 5680 female; 6196 male) at 10 years old.We found that grey and white matter metrics bring partly non-overlapping information to predict cognitive performance. The models with only grey or white matter explained respectively 15.4% and 12.4% of the variance in cognitive performance, while the combined model explained 19.0%. Zooming in we additionally found that different metrics within grey and white matter had different predictive power, and that the tracts/regions that were most predictive of cognitive performance differed across metric.These results show that studies focusing on a single metric in either grey or white matter to study the link between brain structure and cognitive performance are missing a key part of the equation. This paper enriches the recent debates on the challenges of linking variation in brain structure to phenotypic differences (Marek et al., 2022). We demonstrate that using latent variables (to improve power), structural equation modelling (to allow greater flexibility in linking brain to behaviour), and by simultaneously incorporating multiple measures of grey and white matter in a large sample, we demonstrate relatively strong and robust brain-behaviour associations, which highlight the complementarity of grey and white matter metrics in predicting cognitive performance as well as the importance of incorporating the full complexity of these associations over 1-to-1 linkages. This finding should lead researchers to consider integrating both grey and white matter measures when demonstrating a more comprehensive picture of brain-cognition relationships.

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Over the past 30 years there have been numerous large-scale and longitudinal psychiatric research efforts to improve our understanding and treatment of mental health conditions. However, despite the huge effort by the research community and considerable funding, we still lack a causal understanding of most mental health disorders. Consequently, the majority of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment still operates at the level of symptomatic experience, rather than measuring or addressing root causes. This results in a trial-and-error approach that is a poor fit to underlying causality with poor clinical outcomes. Here we discuss how a research framework that originates from exploration of causal factors, rather than symptom groupings, applied to large scale multi-dimensional data can help address some of the current challenges facing mental health research and, in turn, clinical outcomes. Firstly, we describe some of the challenges and complexities underpinning the search for causal drivers of mental health conditions, focusing on current approaches to the assessment and diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, the many-to-many mappings between symptoms and causes, the search for biomarkers of heterogeneous symptom groups, and the multiple, dynamically interacting variables that influence our psychology. Secondly, we put forward a causal-orientated framework in the context of two large-scale datasets arising from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States, and the Global Mind Project which is the largest database in the world of mental health profiles along with life context information from 1.4 million people across the globe. Finally, we describe how analytical and machine learning approaches such as clustering and causal inference can be used on datasets such as these to help elucidate a more causal understanding of mental health conditions to enable diagnostic approaches and preventative solutions that tackle mental health challenges at their root cause.

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Public genomic datasets like the 1000 Genomes project (1KGP), Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study are valuable public resources that facilitate scientific advancements in biology and enhance the scientific and economic impact of federally funded research projects. Regrettably, these datasets have often been developed and studied in ways that propagate outdated racialized and typological thinking, leading to fallacious reasoning among some readers that social and health disparities among the so-called races are due in part to innate biological differences between them. We highlight how this framing has set the stage for the racist exploitation of these datasets in two ways: First, we discuss the use of public biomedical datasets in studies that claim support for innate genetic differences in intelligence and other social outcomes between the groups identified as races. We further highlight recent instances of this which involve unauthorized access, use, and dissemination of public datasets. Second, we discuss the use of simple figures meant for quick dissemination among lay audiences, of population genetic data to argue for a biological basis for purported human racial groups. We close with recommendations for scientists, to preempt the exploitation and misuse of their data, and for funding agencies, to better enforce violations of data use agreements.

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Early exposure to neighborhood social fragmentation has been shown to be associated with schizophrenia. The impact of social fragmentation and friendships on distressing psychotic-like experiences (PLE) remains unknown. We investigate the relationships between neighborhood social fragmentation, number of friends, and distressing PLE among early adolescents.

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Introduction
Nucleus accumbens (NAc), a crucial component of the brain’s reward network, plays a role in reward-related behaviors like substance use. However, limited knowledge exists about sex differences in the predictive power of NAc volume for the initiation of tobacco and marijuana use among children transitioning into early and middle adolescence. To compare the predictive utility of NAc volume for adolescents’ initiation of tobacco and marijuana use over a three-year period.

Methods
Data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (ABCD), a longitudinal study of pre-adolescents aged 9–10 years, were utilized. The study included 9–10 pre-adolescents (n = 11,795) who were followed for 36 months. Cox regression was employed to examine whether NAc volume predicts subsequent initiation of tobacco and marijuana during the follow-up period. Covariates included age, race/ethnicity, puberty, parental composition, parental education, and area-level median income. Sex was the moderator.

Results
While NAc volume predicted future substance use, this association varied based on substance type (tobacco vs. marijuana), sex (male vs. female), and laterality (brain hemisphere). A larger right NAc volume (mm^3) inversely associated with subsequent tobacco use initiation for female youth (HR = 0.998; 95% CI: 0.996-1.000), while it showed no association for male youth (p = 0.385). Larger left NAc volume (mm^3) did not associate with subsequent tobacco use initiation for female youth (p = 0.108) but showed a positive association for male youth (HR = 1.002; 95% CI: 1.001-1.003). NAc volume did not show an association with subsequent marijuana use initiation for either sex.

Conclusions
The predictive impact of right and left NAc volumes on future tobacco or marijuana use may differ for male and female adolescents, suggesting that the salience of NAcc in regulating the reward system is influenced by sex, substance type, and brain hemisphere.

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Sleep disturbances are common in adolescence and associated with a host of negative outcomes. Here we assess associations between multifaceted sleep disturbances and a broad set of psychological, cognitive, and demographic variables using a data-driven approach, canonical correlation analysis (CCA).

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Alcohol intent (the susceptibility to initiating alcohol use) and alcohol sips (the initiation of alcohol) in youth are a multifactorial puzzle with many components. This research aims to examine the connection between genetic and environmental factors across sex, race and ethnicity.

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Screen time has been reported to be associated with binge-eating disorder (BED) among adolescents in the US; however, potential mediators remain unclear. This study aimed to evaluate depression symptoms as a mediator of the prospective association between screen time and BED.

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The complexity of brain signals may hold clues to understand brain-based disorders. Sample entropy, an index that captures the predictability of a signal, is a promising tool to measure signal complexity. However, measurement of sample entropy from fMRI signals has its challenges, and numerous questions regarding preprocessing and parameter selection require research to advance the potential impact of this method. For one example, entropy may be highly sensitive to the effects of motion, yet standard approaches to addressing motion (e.g., scrubbing) may be unsuitable for entropy measurement. For another, the parameters used to calculate entropy need to be defined by the properties of data being analyzed, an issue that has frequently been ignored in fMRI research. The current work sought to rigorously address these issues and to create methods that could be used to advance this field.

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This study aimed to characterize the role of sex and pubertal markers in reward motivation behavior and neural processing in early adolescence. We used baseline and two-year follow-up data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study (15844 observations; 52% from boys; age 9-13). Pubertal development was measured with parent-reported Pubertal Development Scale, and DHEA, testosterone, and estradiol levels. Reward motivation behavior and neural processing at anticipation and feedback stages were assessed with the Monetary Incentive Delay task. Boys had higher reward motivation than girls, demonstrating greater accuracy difference between reward and neutral trials and higher task earnings. Girls had lower neural activation during reward feedback than boys in the nucleus accumbens, caudate, rostral anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal cortex, superior frontal gyrus and posterior cingulate. Pubertal stage and testosterone levels were positively associated with reward motivation behavior, although these associations changed when controlling for age. There were no significant associations between pubertal development and neural activation during reward anticipation and feedback. Sex differences in reward-related processing exist in early adolescence, signaling the need to understand their impact on typical and atypical functioning as it unfolds into adulthood.

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Identifying neuroimaging risk markers for depression has been an elusive goal in psychopathology research. Despite this, smaller hippocampal volume has emerged as a potential risk marker for depression, with recent research suggesting this association is moderated by family income. The current pre-registered study aimed to replicate and extend these findings by examining the moderating role of family income and three dimensions of environmental experience on the link between hippocampus volume and later depression. Data were drawn from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study and were comprised of 6693 youth aged 9-10 years at baseline. Results indicated that psychosocial threat moderated the association between right hippocampus volume and depression symptoms two years later, such that a negative association was evident in low-threat environments (std. beta=0.15, 95% CI [0.05, 0.24]). This interaction remained significant when baseline depression symptoms were included as a covariate, though only in youth endorsing 1 or more depression symptoms at baseline (β = 0.13, 95% CI = [0.03, 0.22]). These results suggest that hippocampus volume may not be a consistent correlate of depression symptoms in high risk environments and emphasize the importance of including measures of environmental heterogeneity when seeking risk markers for depression.

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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been characterized by impairments among distributed functional brain networks, e.g., the frontoparietal network (FPN), default mode network (DMN), reward and motivation-related circuits (RMN), and salience network (SAL). In the current study, we evaluated the complexity and functional connectivity (FC) of resting state fMRI (rsfMRI) in pre-adolescents with the behavioral symptoms of ADHD, for pathology-relevant networks. We leveraged data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. The final study sample included 63 children demonstrating the behavioral features of ADHD and 92 healthy control children matched on age, sex, and pubertal development status. For selected regions in the relevant networks, ANCOVA compared multiscale entropy (MSE) and FC between the groups. Finally, differences in the association between MSE and FC were evaluated. We found significantly reduced MSE along with increased FC within the FPN of pre-adolescents demonstrating the behavior symptoms of ADHD compared to matched healthy controls. Significant partial correlations between MSE and FC emerged in the FPN and RMN in the healthy controls however the association was absent in the participants demonstrating the behavior symptoms of ADHD. The current findings of complexity and FC in ADHD pathology support hypotheses of altered function of inhibitory control networks in ADHD.

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Stimulant medication is the primary pharmacological treatment for attention dysregulation and is commonly prescribed for children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism. Neuroimaging studies of these groups commonly use a 24-48-hour washout period to mediate the effects of stimulant medication on functional connectivity (FC) metrics. However, the impact of washout on functional connectivity has received limited study.

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Social media can influence alcohol initiation behaviors such as sipping, which can lead to future adverse alcohol-related outcomes. Few studies have examined the role of problematic social media use, characterized by addiction, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse, especially in early adolescence.

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While adversities across domains of finance, race, family, and life may operate as risk factors for initiation of substance use in adolescents, the influence of these factors may vary across racial groups of youth. Unfortunately, the existing knowledge is minimal about racial differences in the types of adversities that may increase the risk of subsequent substance use initiation during the transition into adolescence.

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Behavioral features of binge eating disorder (BED) suggest abnormalities in reward and inhibitory control. Studies of adult populations suggest functional abnormalities in reward and inhibitory control networks. Despite behavioral markers often developing in children, the neurobiology of pediatric BED remains unstudied.

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Prior research suggests that the organization of the language network in the brain is left-dominant and becomes more lateralized with age and increasing language skill. The age at which specific components of the language network become adult-like varies depending on the abilities they subserve. So far, a large, developmental study has not included a language task paradigm, so we introduce a method to study resting-state laterality in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Our approach mixes source timeseries between left and right homotopes of the (1) inferior frontal and (2) middle temporal gyri and (3) a region we term “Wernicke’s area” near the supramarginal gyrus. Our large subset sample size of ABCD (n = 6153) allows improved reliability and validity compared to previous, smaller studies of brain-behavior associations. We show that behavioral metrics from the NIH Youth Toolbox and other resources are differentially related to tasks with a larger linguistic component over ones with less (e.g., executive function-dominant tasks). These baseline characteristics of hemispheric specialization in youth are critical for future work determining the correspondence of lateralization with language onset in earlier stages of development.

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A child’s socioeconomic environment can shape central aspects of their life, including vulnerability to mental disorders. Negative environmental influences in youth may interfere with the extensive and dynamic brain development occurring at this time. Indeed, there are numerous yet diverging reports of associations between parental socioeconomic status (SES) and child cortical brain morphometry. Most of these studies have used single metric- or unimodal analyses of standard cortical morphometry that downplay the probable scenario where numerous biological pathways account for SES-related cortical differences in youth.

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To determine the association between sociodemographic characteristics and blood pressure among a demographically diverse population-based sample of 10-14-year-old US adolescents.

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Childhood adversity can lead to cognitive deficits or enhancements, depending on many factors. Though progress has been made, two challenges prevent us from integrating and better understanding these patterns. First, studies commonly use and interpret raw performance differences, such as response times, which conflate different stages of cognitive processing. Second, most studies either isolate or aggregate abilities, obscuring the degree to which individual differences reflect task-general (shared) or task-specific (unique) processes. We addressed these challenges using Drift Diffusion Modeling (DDM) and structural equation modeling (SEM). Leveraging a large, representative sample of 9-10 year-olds from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, we examined how two forms of adversity-material deprivation and household threat-were associated with performance on tasks measuring processing speed, inhibition, attention shifting, and mental rotation. Using DDM, we decomposed performance on each task into three distinct stages of processing: speed of information uptake, response caution, and stimulus encoding/response execution. Using SEM, we isolated task-general and task-specific variances in each processing stage and estimated their associations with the two forms of adversity. Youth with more exposure to household threat (but not material deprivation) showed slower task-general processing speed, but showed intact task-specific abilities. In addition, youth with more exposure to household threat tended to respond more cautiously in general. These findings suggest that traditional assessments might overestimate the extent to which childhood adversity reduces specific abilities. By combining DDM and SEM approaches, we can develop a more nuanced understanding of how adversity affects different aspects of youth’s cognitive performance. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT: To understand how childhood adversity shapes cognitive abilities, the field needs analytical approaches that can jointly document and explain patterns of lowered and enhanced performance. Using Drift Diffusion Modeling and Structural Equation Modeling, we analyzed associations between adversity and processing speed, inhibition, attention shifting, and mental rotation. Household threat, but not material deprivation, was mostly associated with slower task-general processing speed and more response caution. In contrast, task-specific abilities were largely intact. Researchers might overestimate the impact of childhood adversity on specific abilities and underestimate the impact on general processing speed and response caution using traditional measures.

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Maternal tobacco use during pregnancy (MTDP) persists across the globe. Longitudinal assessment of the association of MTDP with neurocognitive development of offspring at late childhood is limited.

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The use of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and vaping, has rapidly increased among children. However, despite consistent associations found between smoking cigarettes and suicidal behaviors among adolescents and adults, there are limited data on associations between emerging tobacco products and suicidal behaviors, especially among preadolescent children.

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Peer victimization predicts the development of mental health symptoms in the transition to adolescence, but it is unclear whether and how parents and school environments can buffer this link.

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Adolescence is among the most vulnerable period for the emergence of serious mental illnesses. Addressing this vulnerability has generated interest in identifying markers of risk for symptoms and opportunities for early intervention. Physical fitness has been linked to psychopathology and may be a useful risk marker and target for early intervention. New wearable technology has made assessing fitness behavior more practical while avoiding recall and self-report bias. Still, questions remain regarding the clinical utility of physical fitness metrics for mental health, both transdiagnostically and along specific symptom dimensions. The current study includes 5007 adolescents (ages 10-13) who participated in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study and additional sub-study that collected fitness data from wearable technology and clinical symptom measures. Physical fitness metrics included resting heart rate (RHR- an index of cardiovascular health), time spent sedentary (associated with increased inflammation and cardiovascular disease), and time spent in moderate physical activity (associated with increased neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, and healthy neurodevelopment). Self-report clinical symptoms included measures of psychosis-like experiences (PLE), internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms. Increased RHR- lower cardiovascular fitness- related only to greater internalizing symptoms (t = 3.63). More sedentary behavior related to elevated PLE severity (t = 5.49). More moderate activity related to lower PLE (t = -2.69) and internalizing (t = -6.29) symptom severity. Wearable technology fitness metrics linked physical health to specific mental health dimensions, which emphasizes the utility of detailed digital health data as a marker for risk and the need for precision in targeting physical health behaviors to benefit symptoms of psychopathology.

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To develop an approach to evaluate multiple overlapping brain functional change patterns (FCPs) in functional network connectivity (FNC) and apply to study developmental changes in brain function.

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Household income, a prominent socioeconomic status (SES) indicator, is known to mitigate youth engagement in various health risk behaviors, including tobacco use. Nevertheless, the Minorities’ Diminished Returns theory suggests that this protective effect may be less pronounced for racial and ethnic minorities compared to majority groups. This study aimed to investigate the protective role of high household income against tobacco use among youth and explore potential variations across different racial and ethnic groups.

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There is widespread recognition of the importance and complexity of measuring neighborhood contexts within research on child psychopathology. In this study, we assessed the cross-sectional associations between two measures of neighborhood quality and internalizing and externalizing behaviors in preadolescence.

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To determine the associations between screen time across several contemporary screen modalities (e.g., television, video games, text, video chat, social media) and adherence to the MIND (Mediterranean-DASH [Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension] Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet in early adolescents.

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Emerging research has provided valuable insights into the structural characteristics of the bilingual brain from studies of bilingual adults; however, there is a dearth of evidence examining brain structural alterations in childhood associated with the bilingual experience. This study examined the associations between bilingualism and white matter organization in bilingual children compared to monolingual peers leveraging the large-scale data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Then, 446 bilingual children (ages 9-10) were identified from the participants in the ABCD data and rigorously matched to a group of 446 monolingual peers. Multiple regression models for selected language and cognitive control white matter pathways were used to compare white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) values between bilinguals and monolinguals, controlling for demographic and environmental factors as covariates in the models. Results revealed significantly lower FA values in bilinguals compared to monolinguals across established dorsal and ventral language network pathways bilaterally (i.e., the superior longitudinal fasciculus and inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus) and right-hemispheric pathways in areas related to cognitive control and short-term memory (i.e., cingulum and parahippocampal cingulum). In contrast to the enhanced FA values observed in adult bilinguals relative to monolinguals, our findings of lower FA in bilingual children relative to monolinguals may suggest a protracted development of white matter pathways associated with language and cognitive control resulting from dual language learning in childhood. Further, these findings underscore the need for large-scale longitudinal investigation of white matter development in bilingual children to understand neuroplasticity associated with the bilingual experience during this period of heightened language learning.

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The linear mixed-effects model (LME) is a versatile approach to account for dependence among observations. Many large-scale neuroimaging datasets with complex designs have increased the need for LME; however LME has seldom been used in whole-brain imaging analyses due to its heavy computational requirements. In this paper, we introduce a fast and efficient mixed-effects algorithm (FEMA) that makes whole-brain vertex-wise, voxel-wise, and connectome-wide LME analyses in large samples possible. We validate FEMA with extensive simulations, showing that the estimates of the fixed effects are equivalent to standard maximum likelihood estimates but obtained with orders of magnitude improvement in computational speed. We demonstrate the applicability of FEMA by studying the cross-sectional and longitudinal effects of age on region-of-interest level and vertex-wise cortical thickness, as well as connectome-wide functional connectivity values derived from resting state functional MRI, using longitudinal imaging data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study release 4.0. Our analyses reveal distinct spatial patterns for the annualized changes in vertex-wise cortical thickness and connectome-wide connectivity values in early adolescence, highlighting a critical time of brain maturation. The simulations and application to real data show that FEMA enables advanced investigation of the relationships between large numbers of neuroimaging metrics and variables of interest while considering complex study designs, including repeated measures and family structures, in a fast and efficient manner. The source code for FEMA is available via: https://github.com/cmig-research-group/cmig_tools/.

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Image-on-scalar regression has been a popular approach to modeling the association between brain activities and scalar characteristics in neuroimaging research. The associations could be heterogeneous across individuals in the population, as indicated by recent large-scale neuroimaging studies, for example, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. The ABCD data can inform our understanding of heterogeneous associations and how to leverage the heterogeneity and tailor interventions to increase the number of youths who benefit. It is of great interest to identify subgroups of individuals from the population such that: (1) within each subgroup the brain activities have homogeneous associations with the clinical measures; (2) across subgroups the associations are heterogeneous, and (3) the group allocation depends on individual characteristics. Existing image-on-scalar regression methods and clustering methods cannot directly achieve this goal. We propose a latent subgroup image-on-scalar regression model (LASIR) to analyze large-scale, multisite neuroimaging data with diverse sociode-mographics. LASIR introduces the latent subgroup for each individual and group-specific, spatially varying effects, with an efficient stochastic expectation maximization algorithm for inferences. We demonstrate that LASIR outperforms existing alternatives for subgroup identification of brain activation patterns with functional magnetic resonance imaging data via comprehensive simulations and applications to the ABCD study. We have released our reproducible codes for public use with the software package available on Github.

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Prenatal substance exposure (PSE) has been linked to adverse health outcomes, but its interactions with environmental and genetic factors remain unclear. Using data from the adolescent brain cognitive development cohort ( = 9,838; baseline age: 9.92 ± 0.62 years), we tested for the robust associations of PSE-caffeine/alcohol/tobacco/marijuana with children’s health, cognition, and brain metrics after controlling for the environmental and genetic contexts. The environmental context involved birth, familial, and societal risk factors, while the genetic context included family histories and polygenic risk scores (PRSs) of mental disorders. In this sample, PSE-caffeine was observed in 59.8%, PSE-alcohol in 25.7%, PSE-tobacco in 13.2%, and PSE-marijuana in 5.6% of children. PSE-tobacco/marijuana was associated with higher environmental risks, PSE-alcohol was associated with lower familial risks, and all PSEs were associated with higher genetic risks. Controlling for these contexts reduced the number of significant health associations by 100, 91, 84, and 18% for PSE-tobacco/marijuana/caffeine/alcohol. Compared to the baseline, PSE-alcohol had the most health associations that were persistent over a 2-year period from preadolescence to adolescence, including associations with more sleep and mental health problems, improved cognitive functions, and larger brain volumes. These persistent associations with mental health problems and crystallized cognition were mediated by the surface areas of the frontal and the parietal cortices, respectively. Lower risk scores of the familial contexts attenuated associations between PSE-alcohol/marijuana and mental health problems. Higher PRS for substance use disorders enhanced late-onset associations of PSE-marijuana with externalizing problems. Results support the “health in context” concept, emphasizing modifiable factors mitigating adverse PSE effects.

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Identification of replicable neuroimaging correlates of ADHD has been hindered by small sample sizes, small effects, and heterogeneity of methods. Given considerable evidence that ADHD is associated with alterations in widely distributed brain networks, and the small effects of individual brain features, a whole-brain perspective focusing on cumulative effects is warranted. Use of large, multi-site samples is crucial for improving reproducibility and clinical utility of brain-wide MRI association studies. To address this, a polyneuro score (PNRS) representing cumulative, brain-wide, ADHD-associated resting-state functional connectivity was constructed and validated using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD, N=5543 51.5% female) study. Association between the PNRS and ADHD symptoms was further tested in the independent Oregon-ADHD-1000 case-control cohort (N=553, 37.4% female). The ADHD PNRS was significantly associated with ADHD symptoms in both the ABCD and Oregon cohorts after accounting for relevant covariates (p-values <0.001). The most predictive PNRS involved all brain networks, though the strongest effects were concentrated among connections involving the default mode and cingulo-opercular networks. In the longitudinal Oregon-ADHD-1000, non-ADHD youth had significantly lower PNRS (Cohen’s =-0.318, robust p=5.5e-4) than children who met ADHD diagnostic criteria at >2 time points (age 7-19). The PNRS, however, did not mediate polygenic risk for ADHD. Brain-wide connectivity was robustly associated with ADHD symptoms in two independent cohorts, providing further evidence of widespread dysconnectivity in ADHD. Evaluation in enriched samples demonstrates the promise of the PNRS approach for improving reproducibility in neuroimaging studies and unraveling the complex relationships between brain connectivity and behavioral disorders. Neuroimaging studies of ADHD have been hindered by small sample sizes, small effects, and differences among study methods. We demonstrate that an ADHD polyneuro risk score (PNRS), representing brain-wide connectivity patterns, was robustly associated with ADHD symptoms in two independent cohorts. The study used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study and the Oregon-ADHD-1000 cohort, and provides further evidence of widespread dysconnectivity in ADHD. The findings highlight the promise of approaches examining cumulative, brain-wide effects, and the importance of using large samples for improving reproducibility of neuroimaging studies.

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Parents’ familism values predict a variety of Latinx American youth’s academic adjustment. However, it is unclear how cultural values such as familism interact with youth’s brain development, which is sensitive to sociocultural input, to shape their academic adjustment. Using a sample of 1916 Latinx American American youth (mean age = 9.90 years, SD = .63 years; 50% girls) and their primary caregivers (mean age = 38.43 years, SD = 6.81 years; 90% mothers) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, this study examined the longitudinal relation between parents’ familism values and youth’s school disengagement, as well as the moderating role of youth’s neural sensitivity to personal reward. Parents’ familism values predicted youth’s decreased school disengagement 1 year later, adjusting for their baseline school disengagement and demographic covariates. Notably, this association was more salient among youth who showed lower (vs. higher) neural activation in the ventral striatum and the lateral OFC during the anticipation of a personal reward. These findings underscore the protective role of familism for Latinx American youth, highlighting the necessity of developing culturally informed interventions that take into consideration of youth’s brain development.

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Exposure to maternal diabetes (DM) or hypertension (HTN) during pregnancy impacts offspring metabolic health in childhood and beyond. Animal models suggest that induction of hypothalamic inflammation and gliosis in the offspring’s hypothalamus is a possible mechanism mediating this effect. We tested, in children, whether in utero exposures to maternal DM or HTN were associated with mediobasal hypothalamic (MBH) gliosis as assessed by brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study included a subsample of 306 children aged 9-11 years enrolled in the ABCD Study®; 49 were DM-exposed, 53 were HTN-exposed, and 204 (2:1 ratio) were age- and sex-matched children unexposed to DM and/or HTN in utero. We found a significant overall effect of group for the primary outcome of MBH/amygdala (AMY) T2 signal ratio (F(2,300):3.51, p = 0.03). Compared to unexposed children, MBH/AMY T2 signal ratios were significantly higher in the DM-exposed (β:0.05, p = 0.02), but not the HTN-exposed children (β:0.03, p = 0.13), findings that were limited to the MBH and independent of adiposity. We concluded that children exposed to maternal DM in utero display evidence of hypothalamic gliosis, suggesting that gestational DM may have a distinct influence on offspring’s brain development and, by extension, children’s long-term metabolic health.

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Social victimization (SV) and altered neural connectivity have been associated with each other and psychotic-like experiences (PLE). However, research has not directly examined the associations between these variables, which may speak to mechanisms of psychosis-risk. Here, we utilized two-year follow-up data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to test whether SV increases PLE through two neural networks mediating socio-affective processes: the default mode (DMN) and salience networks (SAN). We find that a latent SV factor was significantly associated with PLE outcomes. Simultaneous mediation analyses indicated that the DMN partially mediated the SV-PLE association while the SAN did not. Further, multigroup testing found that while Black and Hispanic adolescents experienced SV differently than their White peers, the DMN similarly partially mediated the effect of SV on PLE for these racial groups. These cross-sectional results highlight the importance of SV and its potential impact on social cognitive neural networks for psychosis risk.

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Irritability and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms frequently co-occur in youth. While ADHD has been associated with inhibitory control deficits, the literature on irritability and inhibitory control is mixed. Examining how irritability, ADHD symptoms, and inhibitory control interrelate both cross-sectionally and longitudinally across development could shed light on common and distinct mechanisms of youth psychopathology.

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Adolescent traumatic brain injury (TBI) has long-term effects on brain functioning and behavior, impacting neural activity under cognitive load, especially in the reward network. Adolescent TBI is also linked to risk-taking behaviors including alcohol misuse. It remains unclear how TBI and neural functioning interact to predict alcohol experimentation during adolescence. Using Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study data, this project examined if TBI at ages 9-10 predicts increased odds of alcohol sipping at ages 11-13 and if this association is moderated by neural activity during the Emotional EN-Back working memory task at ages 11-13. Logistic regression analyses showed that neural activity in regions of the fronto-basal ganglia network predicted increased odds of sipping alcohol by ages 11-13 (p < .05). TBI and left frontal pole activity interacted to predict alcohol sipping (OR = 0.507, 95% CI [0.303 – 0.846], p = .009) – increased activity predicted decreased odds of alcohol sipping for those with a TBI (OR = 0.516, 95% CI [0.314 – 0.850], p = .009), but not for those without (OR = 0.971, 95% CI [0.931 -1.012], p = .159). These findings suggest that for youth with a TBI, increased BOLD activity in the frontal pole, underlying working memory, may be uniquely protective against the early initiation of alcohol experimentation. Future work will examine TBI and alcohol misuse in the ABCD cohort across more time points and the impact of personality traits such as impulsivity on these associations.

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Some children, particularly females, who experience concussions develop long-lasting emotional and behavioral problems. Establishing the potential contribution of pre-existing behavioral problems and disrupted white matter maturation has been challenging due to a lack of pre-injury data.

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Past research suggests that parents’ familism values play a positive role in Latinx American youth’s prosocial tendencies. However, little is known about how individual differences in youth’s neural development may contribute to this developmental process. Therefore, using two-wave longitudinal data of 1916 early adolescents (mean age = 9.90 years; 50% girls) and their parents (mean age = 38.43 years; 90% mothers) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, this pre-registered study took a biopsychosocial approach to examine the moderating role of youth’s neural reward sensitivity in the link between parents’ familism values and youth’s prosocial behaviors. Results showed that parents’ familism values were associated with increased prosocial behaviors among youth two years later, controlling for baseline prosocial behaviors and demographic covariates. Notably, parents’ familism values played a larger role in promoting youth’s prosocial behaviors among youth who showed lower ventral striatum activation during reward anticipation. Moreover, such association between parents’ familism values and youth’s later prosocial behaviors was stronger among youth who showed lower levels of prosocial behaviors initially. Taken together, the findings highlight individual differences in neurobiological development and baseline prosocial behaviors as markers of sensitivity to cultural environments with regard to Latinx American youth’s prosocial development.

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Accumulating evidence suggests that estrogens play an important modulatory role in the pathogenesis of psychosis. Estrogens come online within a dynamic developmental context of emerging psychopathology and neurodevelopment. As a result, estradiol (the primary form of estrogen) may influence psychosis lability directly or indirectly through its neurodevelopmental influence on estrogens-sensitive areas like the hippocampus. Understanding this influence may provide novel insight into mechanisms of psychosis lability. This study included baseline and year 2 timepoints from 4422 female participants from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (age 8-13), who varied in estradiol availability (pre-menarche, post-menarche, pre- and post-menarche timepoints). Estradiol availability was related to psychotic-like experiences (PLE) severity both directly and as an interactive effect with hippocampal connectivity using menarche status (pre/post) in a multilevel model. PLE severity was highest in individuals with early menarche emphasizing the importance of the developmental timing. Although PLE severity decreased over time in the sample, it stayed clinically-relevant over 2 years. Lower hippocampal connectivity was related to elevated PLE severity. This effect was moderated by estradiol; before the availability of estradiol (pre-menarche), lower hippocampal connectivity significantly contributed to the PLE severity, but when estradiol was available (post-menarche) hippocampal dysconnectivity did not account for PLE severity. This moderation suggests that the estrodiol’s influence on hippocampal plasticity also reduced the mechanistic role of the hippocampus on PLE severity. Further, the lack of a significant direct reduction of PLE severity post-menarche, may suggest an increased role for other interacting psychosis lability factors during this critical developmental period.

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The contributions of religion to reduced suicide risk have been studied in adults and adolescents, though to our knowledge no comprehensive investigation has been conducted in early adolescents, at a time coinciding with emergence of suicide risk trajectories. In this largest study to date on this topic, we aimed to characterise the contributions of various measures of “private” and “public” religiosity to early adolescent suicide ideation (SI) and suicide attempt (SA) histories using information from a large, epidemiologically informed U.S. sample of adolescents (N = 7068; mean age = 12.89 years, 47% female) and their parents. In all youth, parent-reported adolescent religious importance was associated with reduced odds of SA (OR = 0.75, CI = 0.61-0.92, P = .005). Muslim youth were more likely (OR = 1.52, CI = 1.02-2.22, P = .033), and Catholic youth were less likely (OR = 0.80, CI = 0.67-0.95, P = .014), to report SI. A variety of sex differences were noted, with significant protective associations of adolescent self-reported religiosity on SI and SA, religious service attendance on SI, and religious importance on SI, in female-but not male-youth; and significant protective associations of religious importance on SA in male-but not female-youth. Against expectations, there was no evidence that parent religiosity moderated the link between youth religiosity and SI or SA. These results shed light on the roles of cultural and familial context in youth suicide risk, which may ultimately be targeted in screening and interventional approaches.

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There has been an increase in the number of women using marijuana whilst pregnant. Previous studies have shown that children with prenatal marijuana exposure have developmental deficits in memory and decreased attentiveness. In this study, we assess whether prenatal marijuana exposure is associated with alterations in brain regional morphometry and functional and structural connectivity in adolescents. We downloaded behavioural scores and subject image files from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. A total of 178 anatomical and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging files (88 prenatal marijuana exposure and 90 age- and gender-matched controls) and 152 resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging files (76 prenatal marijuana exposure and 76 controls) were obtained. Behavioural metrics based on the parent-reported child behavioural checklist were also obtained for each subject. The associations of prenatal marijuana exposure with 17 subscales of the child behavioural checklist were calculated. We assessed differences in brain morphometry based on voxel-based and surface-based morphometry in adolescents with prenatal marijuana exposure versus controls. We also evaluated group differences in structural and functional connectivity in adolescents for region-to-region connectivity and graph theoretical metrics. Interactions of prenatal marijuana exposure and graph networks were assessed for impact on behavioural scores. Multiple comparison correction was performed as appropriate. Adolescents with prenatal marijuana exposure had greater abnormal or borderline child behavioural checklist scores in 9 out of 17 subscales. There were no significant differences in voxel- or surface-based morphometry, structural connectivity or functional connectivity between prenatal marijuana exposure and controls. However, there were significant differences in prenatal marijuana exposure-graph network interactions with respect to behavioural scores. There were three structural prenatal marijuana exposure-graph network interactions and seven functional prenatal marijuana exposure-graph network interactions that were significantly associated with behavioural scores. Whilst this study was not able to confirm anatomical or functional differences between prenatal marijuana exposure and unexposed pre-adolescent children, there were prenatal marijuana exposure-brain structural and functional graph network interactions that were significantly associated with behavioural scores. This suggests that altered brain networks may underlie behavioural outcomes in adolescents with prenatal marijuana exposure. More work needs to be conducted to better understand the prognostic value of brain structural and functional network measures in prenatal marijuana exposure.

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We used a polygenic score for externalizing behavior (extPGS) and structural MRI to examine potential pathways from genetic liability to conduct problems via the brain across the adolescent transition.

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Despite its crucial role in the regulation of vital metabolic and neurological functions, the genetic architecture of the hypothalamus remains unknown. Here we conducted multivariate genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using hypothalamic imaging data from 32,956 individuals to uncover the genetic underpinnings of the hypothalamus and its involvement in neuropsychiatric traits. There were 23 significant loci associated with the whole hypothalamus and its subunits, with functional enrichment for genes involved in intracellular trafficking systems and metabolic processes of steroid-related compounds. The hypothalamus exhibited substantial genetic associations with limbic system structures and neuropsychiatric traits including chronotype, risky behaviour, cognition, satiety and sympathetic-parasympathetic activity. The strongest signal in the primary GWAS, the ADAMTS8 locus, was replicated in three independent datasets (N = 1,685-4,321) and was strengthened after meta-analysis. Exome-wide association analyses added evidence to the association for ADAMTS8, and Mendelian randomization showed lower ADAMTS8 expression with larger hypothalamic volumes. The current study advances our understanding of complex structure-function relationships of the hypothalamus and provides insights into the molecular mechanisms that underlie hypothalamic formation.

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Linking the developing brain with individual differences in clinical and demographic traits is challenging due to the substantial interindividual heterogeneity of brain anatomy and organization. Here we employ an integrative approach that parses individual differences in both cortical thickness and common genetic variants, and assess their effects on a wide set of childhood traits. The approach uses a linear mixed model framework to obtain the unique effects of each type of similarity, as well as their covariance. We employ this approach in a sample of 7760 unrelated children in the ABCD cohort baseline sample (mean age 9.9, 46.8% female). In general, associations between cortical thickness similarity and traits were limited to anthropometrics such as height, weight, and birth weight, as well as a marker of neighborhood socioeconomic conditions. Common genetic variants explained significant proportions of variance across nearly all included outcomes, although estimates were somewhat lower than previous reports. No significant covariance of the effects of genetic and cortical thickness similarity was found. The present findings highlight the connection between anthropometrics as well as neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and the developing brain, which appear to be independent from individual differences in common genetic variants in this population-based sample.

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Many recent studies have demonstrated that environmental contexts, both social and physical, have an important impact on child and adolescent neural and behavioral development. The adoption of geospatial methods, such as in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, has facilitated the exploration of many environmental contexts surrounding participants’ residential locations without creating additional burdens for research participants (i.e., youth and families) in neuroscience studies. However, as the number of linked databases increases, developing a framework that considers the various domains related to child and adolescent environments external to their home becomes crucial. Such a framework needs to identify structural contextual factors that may yield inequalities in children’s built and natural environments; these differences may, in turn, result in downstream negative effects on children from historically minoritized groups. In this paper, we develop such a framework – which we describe as the “adolescent neural urbanome” – and use it to categorize newly geocoded information incorporated into the ABCD Study by the Linked External Data (LED) Environment & Policy Working Group. We also highlight important relationships between the linked measures and describe possible applications of the Adolescent Neural Urbanome. Finally, we provide a number of recommendations and considerations regarding the responsible use and communication of these data, highlighting the potential harm to historically minoritized groups through their misuse.

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Consistent evidence documents powerful effects of social inequality on health, well-being and academic achievement. Yet research on whether social inequality may also be linked to brain structure and function has, until recently, been rare. Here we describe three methodological approaches that can be used to study this question-single site, single study; multi-site, single study; and spatial meta-analysis. We review empirical work that, using these approaches, has observed associations between neural outcomes and structural measures of social inequality-including structural stigma, community-level prejudice, gender inequality, neighbourhood disadvantage and the generosity of the social safety net for low-income families. We evaluate the relative strengths and limitations of these approaches, discuss ethical considerations and outline directions for future research. In doing so, we advocate for a paradigm shift in cognitive neuroscience that explicitly incorporates upstream structural and contextual factors, which we argue holds promise for uncovering the neural correlates of social inequality.

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The rise of new media has greatly changed the lifestyles, leading to increased time on these platforms and less time spent reading. This shift has particularly profound impacts on early adolescents, who are in a critical stage of brain development. Previous studies have found associations between screen use and mental health, but it remains unclear whether screen use is the direct cause of the outcomes. Here, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) dataset is utlized to examine the causal relationships between screen use and brain development. The results revealed adverse causal effects of screen use on language ability and specific behaviors in early adolescents, while reading has positive causal effects on their language ability and brain volume in the frontal and temporal regions. Interestingly, increased screen use is identified as a result, rather than a cause, of certain behaviors such as rule-breaking and aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, the analysis uncovered an indirect influence of screen use, mediated by changes in reading habits, on brain development. These findings provide new evidence for the causal influences of screen use on brain development and highlight the importance of monitoring media use and related habit change in children.

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Introduction: Binge eating and compensatory behaviors have significant adverse health implications and are understudied among children. Studies have shown overlap between depressive symptoms and binge eating and compensatory behaviors, but little research has examined sex differences in depressive symptom specificity and binge eating and compensatory behaviors. The present study examined the associations between depressive symptoms and binge eating and compensatory behaviors among male and female children. Methods: Population-based data of 6,975 children ages 9 – 10 years and their caregivers from the multisite Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study were analyzed. The Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS) was utilized to measure binge eating, compensatory behavior, and depressive symptoms. Results: There was an association between presence of anhedonia with increased likelihood of binge eating among females and males. There were no significant associations between individual depressive symptoms and compensatory symptoms among females or males. Lifetime DSM-5 major depressive disorder was associated with binge eating in males and females and compensatory behaviors in females. Discussion: This study provides new knowledge of the specificity of the association between depressive symptoms and binge eating in female compared to male children. Anhedonia may be a key clinical target to reducing binge eating in female and male children.

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Environmental exposures play a crucial role in shaping children’s behavioral development. However, the mechanisms by which these exposures interact with brain functional connectivity and influence behavior remain unexplored.

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A longstanding cerebral lateralization hypothesis predicts that disrupted development of typical leftward structural asymmetry of auditory cortex explains why children have problems learning to read. Small sample sizes and small effects, potential sex-specific effects, and associations that are limited to specific dimensions of language are thought to have contributed inconsistent results. The large ABCD study dataset (baseline visit: N = 11,859) was used to test the hypothesis of significant associations between surface area asymmetry of auditory cortex and receptive vocabulary performance across boys and girls, as well as an oral word reading effect that was specific to boys. The results provide modest support (Cohen’s effect sizes ≤ 0.10) for the cerebral lateralization hypothesis.

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Research suggests that bilingual children experience an extension or delay in the closing of the sensitive/critical period of language development due to multiple language exposure. Moreover, bilingual experience may impact the development of subcortical regions, although these conclusions are drawn from research with adults, as there is a scarcity of research during late childhood and early adolescence. The current study included 1215 bilingual and 5894 monolingual children from the ABCD Study to examine the relationship between subcortical volume and English vocabulary in heritage Spanish bilingual and English monolingual children, as well as volumetric differences between the language groups. We also examined the unique effects of language usage in bilingual children’s subcortical volumes. In general, bilingual children had less cerebellar volume and greater volume in the putamen, thalamus, and globus pallidus than monolingual children. English vocabulary was positively related to volume in the cerebellum, thalamus, caudate, putamen, nucleus accumbens, and right pallidum in all children. Moreover, the positive relationship between vocabulary and volume in the nucleus accumbens was stronger for monolingual adolescents than bilingual adolescents. The results are somewhat in line with existing literature on the dynamic volume adaptation of subcortical brain regions due to bilingual development and experience. Future research is needed to further explore these regions longitudinally across development to examine structural changes in bilingual brains.

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Previous investigations that have examined associations between family history (FH) of alcohol/substance use and adolescent brain development have been primarily cross-sectional. Here, leveraging a large population-based sample of youths, we characterized frontal cortical trajectories among 9- to 13-year-olds with (FH+) versus without (FH-) an FH and examined sex as a potential moderator.

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Individual differences in cognition during childhood are associated with important social, physical, and mental health outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Given that cortical surface arealization during development reflects the brain’s functional prioritization, quantifying variation in the topography of functional brain networks across the developing cortex may provide insight regarding individual differences in cognition. We test this idea by defining personalized functional networks (PFNs) that account for interindividual heterogeneity in functional brain network topography in 9-10 year olds from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ Study. Across matched discovery (n = 3525) and replication (n = 3447) samples, the total cortical representation of fronto-parietal PFNs positively correlates with general cognition. Cross-validated ridge regressions trained on PFN topography predict cognition in unseen data across domains, with prediction accuracy increasing along the cortex’s sensorimotor-association organizational axis. These results establish that functional network topography heterogeneity is associated with individual differences in cognition before the critical transition into adolescence.

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Adverse childhood experiences have been linked to detrimental mental health outcomes in adulthood. This study investigates a potential neurodevelopmental pathway between adversity and mental health outcomes: brain connectivity.This study used data from the prospective, longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (ABCD, N ≈ 12.000, participants aged 9-13, male and female) and assessed structural brain connectivity using fractional anisotropy (FA) of white matter tracts. The adverse experiences modelled included family conflict and traumatic experiences. K-Means clustering, and Latent Basis Growth Models (LBGM), were used to determine subgroups based on total levels and trajectories of brain connectivity. Multinomial regression was used to determine associations between cluster membership and adverse experiences.Results showed that higher family conflict was associated with higher FA levels across brain tracts (e.g., (3) = -3.81, = -0.09, = .003) and within the corpus callosum (CC), Fornix and anterior thalamic radiations (ATR). A decreasing FA trajectory across two brain imaging timepoints was linked to lower socioeconomic status and neighbourhood safety. Socioeconomic status was related to FA across brain tracts (e.g., (3) = 3.44, = 0.10, = .01), the CC and the ATR. Neighbourhood safety was associated with FA in the Fornix and ATR (e.g., (1) = 3.48, = 0.09, = .01).There is a complex and multifaceted relationship between adverse experiences and brain development, where adverse experiences during early adolescence are related to brain connectivity. These findings underscore the importance of studying adverse experiences beyond early childhood to understand lifespan developmental outcomes. There is a compelling link between youth adversity and various detrimental outcomes, including reduced mental health, socioeconomic status, and even life expectancy. One potential pathway for the lifelong consequences of adversity could be neurodevelopment in adolescence, but few studies have tested this directly. This study investigates a potential neurodevelopmental pathway between adversity and mental health outcomes: brain connectivity. We explored the relationship between adverse experiences during early adolescence (ages 9-13) and individual differences in neurodevelopmental trajectories. Our results provide novel evidence demonstrating that adverse experiences during adolescence are related to changes in brain connectivity. They highlight the need to consider environmental influences on development during adolescence, a unique period of protracted biological, social, and cognitive changes.

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Cognitive functions and psychopathology develop in parallel in childhood and adolescence, but the temporal dynamics of their associations are poorly understood. The present study sought to elucidate the intertwined development of decision-making processes and attention problems using longitudinal data from late childhood (9-10 years) to mid-adolescence (11-13 years) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (n = 8918). We utilised hierarchical drift-diffusion modelling of behavioural data from the stop-signal task, parent-reported attention problems from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and multigroup univariate and bivariate latent change score models. The results showed faster drift rate was associated with lower levels of inattention at baseline, as well as a greater reduction of inattention over time. Moreover, baseline drift rate negatively predicted change in attention problems in females, and baseline attention problems negatively predicted change in drift rate. Neither response caution (decision threshold) nor encoding- and responding processes (non-decision time) were significantly associated with attention problems. There were no significant sex differences in the associations between decision-making processes and attention problems. The study supports previous findings of reduced evidence accumulation in attention problems and additionally shows that development of this aspect of decision-making plays a role in developmental changes in attention problems in youth.

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The purpose of our study was to understand the relationship between sociodemographic factors and adherence to the MIND (Mediterranean-DASH [Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension] Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet in a demographically diverse national population-based sample of 9-12-year-olds in the US.

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Parent-child transmission of suicidal behaviors has been extensively studied, but the investigation of a three-generation family suicide risk paradigm remains limited. In this study, we aimed to explore the behavioral and brain signatures of multi-generational family history of suicidal behaviors (FHoS) in preadolescents, utilizing a longitudinal design and the dataset from Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study®), which comprised 4 years of data and includes a total of 9,653 preadolescents. Our findings revealed that multi-generational FHoS was significantly associated with an increased risk of problematic behaviors and suicidal behaviors (suicide ideation and suicide attempt) in offspring. Interestingly, the problematic behaviors were further identified as a mediator in the multi-generational transmission of suicidal behaviors. Additionally, we observed alterations in brain structure within superior temporal gyrus (STG), precentral/postcentral cortex, posterior parietal cortex (PPC), cingulate cortex (CC), and planum temporale (PT), as well as disrupted functional connectivity of default mode network (DMN), ventral attention network (VAN), dorsal attention network (DAN), fronto-parietal network (FPN), and cingulo-opercular network (CON) among preadolescents with FHoS. These results provide compelling longitudinal evidence at the population level, highlighting the associations between multi-generational FHoS and maladaptive behavioral and neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring. These findings underscore the need for early preventive measures aimed at mitigating the familial transmission of suicide risk and reducing the global burden of deaths among children and adolescents.

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To determine the sociodemographic correlates of alcohol expectancies (i.e., beliefs regarding positive or negative effects of alcohol) in a national (U.S.) cohort of early adolescents 10-14 years old. A second aim was to determine associations between alcohol sipping and alcohol expectancies.

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As an essential part of the central nervous system, white matter coordinates communications between different brain regions and is related to a wide range of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have uncovered loci associated with white matter microstructure. However, GWAS suffer from limited reproducibility and difficulties in detecting multi-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and epistatic effects. In this study, we adopt the concept of supervariants, a combination of alleles in multiple loci, to account for potential multi-SNP effects. We perform supervariant identification and validation to identify loci associated with 22 white matter fractional anisotropy phenotypes derived from diffusion tensor imaging. To increase reproducibility, we use UK Biobank White British (n = 30,842) data for discovery and internal validation, and UK Biobank White but non-British (n = 1,927) data, European of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (n = 4,399) data, and European of Human Connectome Project (n = 319) data for external validation. We identified 23 novel loci on the discovery set that have not been reported in the previous GWAS on white matter microstructure. Among them, three supervariants on genomic regions 5q35.1, 8p21.2, and 19q13.32 have p-values lower than 0.05 in the meta-analysis of the three independent validation datasets. These supervariants contain genetic variants located in genes that have been related to brain structures, cognitive functions, and neuropsychiatric diseases. Our findings provide a better understanding of the genetic architecture underlying white matter microstructure.

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Delay discounting is a tendency to devalue delayed rewards compared to immediate rewards. Evidence suggests that steeper delay discounting is associated with psychiatric disorders across diagnostic categories, but it is unclear whether steeper delay discounting is a risk factor for these disorders. We examined whether children at higher risk for psychiatric disorders, based on family history, would demonstrate steeper delay discounting behavior using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a nationally representative sample of 11,878 children. We looked at associations between delay discounting behavior and family history of alcohol problems, drug problems, depression, mania, schizophrenia, and suicidal behavior. Correlations between family history of psychopathology and delay discounting behavior were small, ranging from ρ = - 0.02 to 0.04. In mixed effects models controlled for sociodemographic factors, family history of psychopathology was not associated with steeper delay discounting behavior. Sociodemographic factors played a larger role in predicting delay discounting behavior than family history of psychopathology. These results do not support the hypothesis that children with greater risk for psychopathology display steeper delay discounting behavior.

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The enduring influence of early life stress (ELS) on brain and cognitive development has been widely acknowledged, yet the precise mechanisms underlying this association remain elusive. We hypothesize that ELS might disrupt the genome-wide influence on brain morphology and connectivity development, consequently exerting a detrimental impact on children’s cognitive ability. We analyzed the multimodal data of DNA genotypes, brain imaging (structural and diffusion MRI), and neurocognitive battery (NIH Toolbox) of 4276 children (ages 9-10 years, European ancestry) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The genome-wide influence on cognitive function was estimated using the polygenic score (GPS). By using brain morphometry and tractography, we identified the brain correlates of the cognition GPSs. Statistical analyses revealed relationships for the gene-brain-cognition pathway. The brain structural variance significantly mediated the genetic influence on cognition (indirect effect = 0.016, P < 0.001). Of note, this gene-brain relationship was significantly modulated by abuse, resulting in diminished cognitive capacity (Index of Moderated Mediation = -0.007; 95 % CI = -0.012 ∼ -0.002). Our results support a novel gene-brain-cognition model likely elucidating the long-lasting negative impact of ELS on children’s cognitive development.

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Both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and bullying victimization are linked with mental health problems in adolescents. However, little is known about the overlap between the two factors and how this impacts adolescent mental health problems (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems). The current study analyzed data from 8,085 participants (47.7% female; 44.1% racial/ethnic minority) in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, baseline (2016-2018, ages 9-10 years) to Year 2. Regression analyses were used to estimate associations between ACEs, bullying victimization and mental health problems, respectively, adjusting for sex, race/ethnicity, country of birth, household income, parental education, and study site. The findings showed that both ACEs and bullying victimization were independently associated with higher internalizing and higher externalizing problems. However, no significant interaction was found between ACEs and bullying victimization. Overall, the results align with the cumulative risk model of adversity, linking cumulative ACEs and bullying victimization to internalizing and externalizing problems in early adolescents.

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The externalizing disorders of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD) are common in adolescence and are strong predictors of adult psychopathology. While treatable, substantial diagnostic overlap complicates intervention planning. Understanding which factors predict the onset of each disorder and disambiguating their different predictors is of substantial translational interest.

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Multi-site collaboration is essential for overcoming small-sample problems when exploring reproducible biomarkers in MRI studies. However, various scanner-specific factors dramatically reduce the cross-scanner replicability. Moreover, existing harmony methods mostly could not guarantee the improved performance of downstream tasks.

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Puberty is linked to mental health problems during adolescence, and in particular, the timing of puberty is thought to be an important risk factor. This study developed a new measure of pubertal timing that was built upon multiple pubertal features and their nonlinear changes over time (i.e., with age), and investigated its association with mental health problems. Using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort (N ~ 9900, aged 9-13 years), we employed three different models to assess pubertal timing. These models aimed to predict chronological age based on: (i) observed physical development, (ii) hormone levels (testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone [DHEA]), and (iii) a combination of both physical development and hormones. To achieve this, we utilized a supervised machine learning approach, which allowed us to train the models using the available data and make age predictions based on the input pubertal features. The accuracy of these three models was evaluated, and their associations with mental health problems were examined. The new pubertal timing model performed better at capturing age variance compared to the more commonly used linear regression method. Further, the model based on physical features accounted for the most variance in mental health, such that earlier pubertal timing was associated with higher symptoms. This study demonstrates the utility of our new model of pubertal timing and suggests that, relative to hormonal measures, physical measures of pubertal maturation have a stronger association with mental health problems in early adolescence.

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The early stages of chronic disease typically progress slowly, so symptoms are usually only noticed until the disease is advanced. Slow progression and heterogeneous manifestations make it challenging to model the transition from normal to disease status. As patient conditions are only observed at discrete timestamps with varying intervals, an incomplete understanding of disease progression and heterogeneity affects clinical practice and drug development.

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Individual differences in reward-processing are central to heightened risk-taking behaviors during adolescence, but there is inconsistent evidence for the relationship between risk-taking phenotypes and the neural substrates of these behaviors.

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Cannabis is widely used, including in early adolescence, with prevalence rates varying by measurement method (e.g., toxicology vs. self-report). Critical neurocognitive development occurs throughout adolescence. Given conflicting prior brain-behavior results in cannabis research, improved measurement of cannabis use in younger adolescents is needed.

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The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study was launched by the Collaborative Research on Addiction at NIH (CRAN) in 2016 and is now supported by 11 other federal agencies and centers. The six primary aims of ABCD were to: Develop national standards for normal brain development for youth ages 9-19 years; Determine individual developmental trajectories (e.g., brain, cognitive, and emotional development, academic progress), and identify factors that can influence (protectively or adversely) these developmental patterns; Examine the roles of genetic, cultural, and environmental factors in youth development, as well as their interactions; Evaluate the effects of health, physical activity, sleep, social activities, sports injuries, and other experiences on brain and developmental outcomes; Assess the onset and progression of mental health (MH) disorders and factors that influence their course and severity as well as the relations between MH and substance use (SU); Determine how substance exposure patterns affect developmental outcomes, including brain development, and vice versa. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is the largest, long-term study of brain development and child and adolescent health that has ever been conducted in the United States. The ABCD Research Consortium is supported by the National Institutes of Health and includes a central coordinating center, a data analysis and informatics core, and 21 research sites across the country. This special issue of presents some important findings on adolescent health behavior that have recently emerged from the ABCD Study (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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The empirical reports in this special issue of showcase the work of a diverse array of accomplished early-stage investigators who are members of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study consortium and who are drawn from the community of female and underrepresented scientists. Their studies focus primarily on youth assessed during preadolescence and early adolescence, and they are based on the ABCD data that were available to the scientific community at the time this special issue was being prepared (e.g., baseline, Years 1 and 2 assessments). They address a variety of questions about adolescent health behavior, such as the effects of screen time and caffeine on sleep; individual lifestyle, neighborhood, and environmental factors associated with physical health conditions and brain development; and the antecedents and consequences of prenatal and adolescent substance exposure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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Family environment and parental monitoring have long been recognized as two important factors associated with adolescents’ psychological development. Studies have suggested a potential link between parenting style/parental engagement and the likelihood of bullying victimization among adolescents. Nonetheless, no studies to date have investigated the association between family environment and the subsequent risk of cyberbullying victimization among adolescents. In this study, we assessed the association between family environment (e.g. parental monitoring and family conflict) and subsequent risk of cyberbullying victimization using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD).

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The Brain-Age Gap Estimation (BrainAGE) is an important new tool that purports to evaluate brain maturity when used in adolescent populations. However, it is unclear whether BrainAGE tracks with other maturational metrics in adolescence. In the current study, we related BrainAGE to metrics of pubertal and cognitive development using both a previously validated model and a novel model trained specifically on an early adolescent population. The previously validated model was used to predict BrainAGE in two age bands, 9-11 and 10-13 years old, while the novel model was used with 9-11 year olds only. Across both models and age bands, an older BrainAGE was related to more advanced pubertal development. The relationship between BrainAGE and cognition was less clear, with conflicting relationships across the two models. Additionally, longitudinal analysis revealed moderate to high stability in BrainAGE across early adolescence. The results of the current study provide initial evidence that BrainAGE tracks with some metrics of maturation, including pubertal development. However, the conflicting results between BrainAGE and cognition lead us to question the utility of these models for non-biological processes.

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Skin-deep resilience, in which youth overcome adversity and achieve success in psychological and academic domains but at a cost to their physiological well-being, has been documented in late adolescence and adulthood. However, its potential to emerge at earlier developmental stages is unknown. To address this gap, secondary data analyses were executed using waves 1 and 2 of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (n = 7712; ages 9-10 years at baseline [mean: 9.92; SD = 0.63]; 47.1% female; 66.1% White, 13.4% Black, and 20.6% Hispanic). The results indicated high levels of executive functioning were associated with improved psychological and behavioral outcomes at one-year follow-up. However, for racial and ethnic minority (i.e., Black or Hispanic) youth from disadvantaged neighborhoods, high levels of executive functioning were also associated with accelerated pubertal development. No significant interaction was observed among White youth. The findings suggest the skin-deep resilience pattern may be evident in early adolescence.

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Empathy is at the core of our social world, yet multidomain factors that affect its development in socially sensitive periods, such as adolescence, are incompletely understood. To address this gap, this study investigated associations between social, environmental and mental health factors, and their temporal changes, on adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions and, for comparison, callous unemotional (CU) traits and behaviors, in the early longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development sample (baseline: n = 11062; 2-year follow-up: n = 9832, median age = 119 and 144 months, respectively). Caregiver affection towards the youth, liking school, having a close friend, and importance of religious beliefs/spirituality in the youth’s life were consistently positively correlated with empathetic behaviors/emotions across assessments (p<0.001, Cohen’s f = ~0.10). Positive family dynamics and cohesion, living in a neighborhood that shared the family’s values, but also parent history of substance use and (aggregated) internalizing problems were additionally positively associated with one or more empathetic behaviors at follow-up (p<0.001, f = ~0.10). In contrast, externalizing problems, anxiety, depression, fear of social situations, and being withdrawn were negatively associated with empathetic behaviors and positively associated with CU traits and behaviors (p<0.001, f = ~0.1-0.44). The latter were also correlated with being cyberbullied and/or discriminated against, anhedonia, and impulsivity, and their interactions with externalizing and internalizing issues. Significant positive temporal correlations of behaviors at the two assessments indicated positive (early) developmental empathetic behavior trajectories, and negative CU traits’ trajectories. Negative changes in mental health adversely moderated positive trajectories and facilitated negative ones. These findings highlight that adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions are positively related to multidomain protective social environmental factors, but simultaneously adversely associated with risk factors in the same domains, as well as bully victimization, discrimination, and mental health problems. Risk factors instead facilitate the development of CU traits and behaviors.

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Although the association between childhood trauma and subsequent binge-purge spectrum eating disorders (BP-EDs) is established in adult samples, little is known about the temporal association between potentially traumatic life events and BP-ED onset in children. Using longitudinal data from the U.S.-nationwide Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study with children aged 9-10 at baseline, logistic regression with complex sampling assessed the longitudinal association of exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) at baseline and meeting BP-ED criteria one year later. Children exposed to PTEs prior to baseline had 1.91 times greater odds of being diagnosed with a BP-ED one year later (95% CI: 1.26 – 2.90; p = .004), compared to those who had not experienced a PTE. The current study extends previous cross-sectional research to show a significant temporal association between childhood PTEs before ages 9-10 and the subsequent onset of BP-EDs one year later. Future research should consider specific timing of PTE exposure as well as examining children diagnosed with restrictive eating disorders.

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Nicotine-containing products (NCPs) such as electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) are increasingly common throughout the landscape of youth use of nicotine-containing products (NCP), and have overtaken traditional cigarette smoking modalities. This study seeks to examine the genetic and environmental influences on liability for susceptibility and initiation of ENDS and other NCPs among US children.

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Peer victimization can negatively impact emotion regulation in youth and is associated with harmful mental health outcomes. One protective factor against the impacts of peer victimization is a strong attachment to family and positive peer relationships. Given that pets are commonly seen as family members and that youth report turning to their pet for emotional comfort, companion animals could provide an avenue of support for youth experiencing victimization. A geographically diverse sample of 5725 adolescents in the United States from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study® was used to explore whether the relationship between peer victimization and emotion regulation was moderated by whether a pet lives in the home. Having a pet in the home did not moderate the relationship between peer victimization and emotion regulation; however, mean-level differences were present across types of household pet (i.e., youth with no pets, youth with at least one dog, and youth with non-dog pets). Participants who did not live with a companion animal showed higher levels of both maladaptive emotion regulation (expressive suppression) and adaptive emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal), suggesting that having a pet might lower overall emotion regulation pathways regardless of adaptive directionality. Relational victimization was a significant predictor of expressive suppression regardless of whether there was a pet in the home, although overt victimization was not a predictor of either kind of emotion regulation. This research demonstrates the complex nature of human-animal relationships and suggests more research is needed to understand the nuanced relationship between pets, peer victimization, and emotion regulation.

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The cranial vault in humans is highly variable, clinically relevant, and heritable, yet its genetic architecture remains poorly understood. Here, we conduct a joint multi-ancestry and admixed multivariate genome-wide association study on 3D cranial vault shape extracted from magnetic resonance images of 6772 children from the ABCD study cohort yielding 30 genome-wide significant loci. Follow-up analyses indicate that these loci overlap with genomic risk loci for sagittal craniosynostosis, show elevated activity cranial neural crest cells, are enriched for processes related to skeletal development, and are shared with the face and brain. We present supporting evidence of regional localization for several of the identified genes based on expression patterns in the cranial vault bones of E15.5 mice. Overall, our study provides a comprehensive overview of the genetics underlying normal-range cranial vault shape and its relevance for understanding modern human craniofacial diversity and the etiology of congenital malformations.

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Metabolic, hormonal, autonomic and physiological rhythms may have a significant impact on cerebral hemodynamics and intrinsic brain synchronization measured with fMRI (the resting-state connectome). The impact of their characteristic time scales (hourly, circadian, seasonal), and consequently scan timing effects, on brain topology in inherently heterogeneous developing connectomes remains elusive. In a cohort of 4102 early adolescents with resting-state fMRI (median age = 120.0 months; 53.1 % females) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, this study investigated associations between scan time-of-day, time-of-week (school day vs weekend) and time-of-year (school year vs summer vacation) and topological properties of resting-state connectomes at multiple spatial scales. On average, participants were scanned around 2 pm, primarily during school days (60.9 %), and during the school year (74.6 %). Scan time-of-day was negatively correlated with multiple whole-brain, network-specific and regional topological properties (with the exception of a positive correlation with modularity), primarily of visual, dorsal attention, salience, frontoparietal control networks, and the basal ganglia. Being scanned during the weekend (vs a school day) was correlated with topological differences in the hippocampus and temporoparietal networks. Being scanned during the summer vacation (vs the school year) was consistently positively associated with multiple topological properties of bilateral visual, and to a lesser extent somatomotor, dorsal attention and temporoparietal networks. Time parameter interactions suggested that being scanned during the weekend and summer vacation enhanced the positive effects of being scanned in the morning. Time-of-day effects were overall small but spatially extensive, and time-of-week and time-of-year effects varied from small to large (Cohen’s f ≤ 0.1, Cohen’s d<0.82, p < 0.05). Together, these parameters were also positively correlated with temporal fMRI signal variability but only in the left hemisphere. Finally, confounding effects of scan time parameters on relationships between connectome properties and cognitive task performance were assessed using the ABCD neurocognitive battery. Although most relationships were unaffected by scan time parameters, their combined inclusion eliminated associations between properties of visual and somatomotor networks and performance in the Matrix Reasoning and Pattern Comparison Processing Speed tasks. Thus, scan time of day, week and year may impact measurements of adolescent brain’s functional circuits, and should be accounted for in studies on their associations with cognitive performance, in order to reduce the probability of incorrect inference.

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Publicly available data sets of structural MRIs might not contain specific measurements of brain Regions of Interests (ROIs) that are important for training machine learning models. For example, the curvature scores computed by Freesurfer are not released by the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. One can address this issue by simply reapplying Freesurfer to the data set. However, this approach is generally computationally and labor intensive (e.g., requiring quality control). An alternative is to impute the missing measurements via a deep learning approach. However, the state-of-the-art is designed to estimate randomly missing values rather than entire measurements. We therefore propose to re-frame the imputation problem as a prediction task on another (public) data set that contains the missing measurements and shares some ROI measurements with the data sets of interest. A deep learning model is then trained to predict the missing measurements from the shared ones and afterwards is applied to the other data sets. Our proposed algorithm models the dependencies between ROI measurements via a graph neural network (GNN) and accounts for demographic differences in brain measurements (e.g. sex) by feeding the graph encoding into a parallel architecture. The architecture simultaneously optimizes a graph decoder to impute values and a classifier in predicting demographic factors. We test the approach, called emographic ware raph-based mputation (), on imputing those missing Freesurfer measurements of ABCD (N=3760; minimum age 12 years) by training the predictor on those publicly released by the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA, N=540). 5-fold cross-validation on NCANDA reveals that the imputed scores are more accurate than those generated by linear regressors and deep learning models. Adding them also to a classifier trained in identifying sex results in higher accuracy than only using those Freesurfer scores provided by ABCD.

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We examined the relationship between parent- and child-reported gender identity of the youth with internalizing symptoms in transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) youth. In addition, we investigated differences in sex assigned at birth ratios and pubertal development stages in TGD and cisgender youth. We analyzed longitudinal data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (ABCD), corresponding to baseline and 1st-to-3rd-year follow-up interviews ( = 6030 to  = 9743, age range [9-13]). Sociodemographic variables, self- and parent-reported gender identity, and clinical measures were collected. TGD youth showed higher levels of internalizing symptoms compared with cisgender youth. However, this was not worsened by discordance in gender identification between TGD youth and parents. Over the 3-year follow-up period, the number of TGD participants increased from 0.8% (95% confidence interval (CI) [0.6-1.0]) at baseline to 1.4% (95% CI [1.1-1.7]) at the 3rd-year follow-up ( = 10.476, df = 1, false discovery rate (FDR)-adjusted  = 0.00256), particularly among those assigned female at birth (AFAB) in relation to people assigned male at birth (AMAB) (AMAB:AFAB at baseline: 1:1.9 vs. AMAB:AFAB at 3rd-year follow-up: 1:4.7,  = 40.357, df = 1, FDR-adjusted  < 0.0001). TGD youth in ABCD reported higher internalizing symptoms than cisgender youth, although this was not affected by parental discordance in gender identification. A substantial increase over time in TGD children AFAB was documented. More research is needed to understand the clinical implications of these preliminary results, for which the longitudinal design of ABCD will be crucial.

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Use of psychotropic substances in childhood has been associated with both impulsivity and other manifestations of poor executive function as well as escalation over time to use of progressively stronger substances. However, how this relationship may start in earlier childhood has not been well explored. Here, we investigated the neurobehavioral correlates of daily caffeinated soda consumption in preadolescent children and examined whether caffeinated soda intake is associated with a higher risk of subsequent alcohol initiation.

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The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a major life stress event for many adolescents, associated with disrupted school, behaviors, social networks, and health concerns. However, pandemic-related stress was not equivalent for everyone and could have been influenced by pre-pandemic factors including brain structure and sleep, which both undergo substantial development during adolescence. Here, we analyzed clusters of perceived stress levels across the pandemic and determined developmentally relevant pre-pandemic risk factors in brain structure and sleep of persistently high stress during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Most research on the neurostructural basis of language abilities in children stems from small samples and surface-based measures. To complement and expand the existent knowledge, we investigated associations between grey matter volume and language performance in a large sample of 9-to-11-year-old children, using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (N = 1865) and an alternative measure of grey matter morphology. We estimated whole-brain grey matter volume for one half of the sample (N = 939) and tested for correlations with scores on a picture vocabulary and a letter and word reading test, with and without factoring in general intelligence and total grey matter volume as additional covariates. The initial analyses yielded correlations between grey matter in the right occipital fusiform gyrus, the right lingual gyrus, and the cerebellum for both vocabulary and reading. Employing the significant clusters from the first analyses as regions of interest in the second half of the cohort (N = 926) in correlational and multiple regression analyses suggests the cluster in the right occipital fusiform and lingual gyri to be most robust. Overall, the amount of variance explained by grey matter volume is limited and factoring in additional covariates paints an inconsistent picture. The present findings reinforce existent doubt with respect to explaining individual differences in reading and vocabulary performance based on unique contributions of macrostructural brain features.

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There is a dearth of literature on the prevalence and predictors of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) history and onset among preadolescent youth. This gap in the literature is significant given evidence suggesting that NSSI is a robust predictor of negative mental health outcomes, and that early onset NSSI may be associated with a more severe course of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. This study aimed to evaluate sociodemographic characteristics, psychiatric disorders, and suicidal ideation (SI) in relation to NSSI onset and history in preadolescents.

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Sleep is critical to a variety of cognitive functions and insufficient sleep can have negative consequences for mood and behavior across the lifespan. An important open question is how sleep duration is related to functional brain organization which may in turn impact cognition. To characterize the functional brain networks related to sleep across youth and young adulthood, we analyzed data from the publicly available Human Connectome Project (HCP) dataset, which includes n-back task-based and resting-state fMRI data from adults aged 22-35 years (task n = 896; rest n = 898). We applied connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) to predict participants’ mean sleep duration from their functional connectivity patterns. Models trained and tested using 10-fold cross-validation predicted self-reported average sleep duration for the past month from n-back task and resting-state connectivity patterns. We replicated this finding in data from the 2-year follow-up study session of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which also includes n-back task and resting-state fMRI for adolescents aged 11-12 years (task n = 786; rest n = 1274) as well as Fitbit data reflecting average sleep duration per night over an average duration of 23.97 days. CPMs trained and tested with 10-fold cross-validation again predicted sleep duration from n-back task and resting-state functional connectivity patterns. Furthermore, demonstrating that predictive models are robust across independent datasets, CPMs trained on rest data from the HCP sample successfully generalized to predict sleep duration in the ABCD Study sample and vice versa. Thus, common resting-state functional brain connectivity patterns reflect sleep duration in youth and young adults.

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Ample evidence demonstrates that structural stigma – defined as societal-level conditions, cultural norms, and institutional policies and practices that constrain opportunities, resources, and well-being of stigmatized populations – is associated with psychopathology in adults from marginalized groups. Yet there is limited research on whether structural stigma is similarly associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms among youth.

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Distressing and persistent psychoticlike experiences (PLEs) in youth are associated with greater odds of developing psychiatric conditions in adulthood. Despite this risk, it is unclear whether early PLEs show similar brain patterns compared with adults with psychiatric and neurologic conditions.

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Children’s exposure to screen time has been associated with poor mental health outcomes, yet the role of genetic factors remains largely unknown.

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To determine the associations between the number of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and objectively-measured physical activity (PA) in a population-based, demographically diverse cohort of 9-14-year-olds and to determine which subtypes of ACEs were associated with physical activity levels.

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Cognitive flexibility is an executive functioning skill that develops in childhood, and when impaired, has transdiagnostic implications for psychiatric disorders. To identify how intrinsic neural architecture at rest is linked to cognitive flexibility performance, we used the data-driven method of Independent Components Analysis (ICA) to investigate resting state networks (RSNs) and their whole-brain connectivity associated with levels of cognitive flexibility performance in children. We hypothesized differences by cognitive flexibility performance in RSN connectivity strength in cortico-striatal circuitry, which would manifest via the executive control network, right and left frontoparietal networks (FPN), salience network, default mode network (DMN), and basal ganglia network. We selected participants from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study who scored at the 25th, (“CF-Low”), 50th (“CF-Average”), or 75th percentiles (“CF-High”) on a cognitive flexibility task, were early to middle puberty, and did not exhibit significant psychopathology (n = 967, 47.9% female; ages 9-10). We conducted whole-brain ICA, identifying 14 well-characterized RSNs. Groups differed in connectivity strength in the right FPN, anterior DMN, and posterior DMN. Planned comparisons indicated CF-High had stronger connectivity between right FPN and supplementary motor/anterior cingulate than CF-Low. CF-High had more anti-correlated connectivity between anterior DMN and precuneus than CF-Average. CF-Low had stronger connectivity between posterior DMN and supplementary motor/anterior cingulate than CF-Average. Post-hoc correlations with reaction time by trial type demonstrated significant associations with connectivity. In sum, our results suggest childhood cognitive flexibility performance is associated with DMN and FPN connectivity strength at rest, and that there may be optimal levels of connectivity associated with task performance that vary by network.

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