The University of Minnesota is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, approximately 3 miles apart. The university is organized into 19 colleges and schools, and it has sister campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Rochester. The Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, which hosts the ABCD project, is nationally ranked by the National Research Council as well as US News and World Report within the top ten psychology departments nationwide (https://cla.umn.edu/psychology). The department is comprised of seven areas: Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research, Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Counseling, Industrial-Organizational, Personality-Individual Differences-Behavior Genetics, Social and Quantitative/Psychometric Methods. We are world famous for our studies of individual differences, personality, and clinical science. Our faculty members are leaders in their fields and sustain active programs of federally funded research in basic and applied aspects of psychological science. We maintain interdisciplinary connections with the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center and medical school, as well as with the University’s Institute of Child Development, which is the top-ranked program in the United States (see https://www.cehd.umn.edu/icd).

The University of Minnesota is one of 21 institutions nationwide that will recruit families to participate in the ABCD Study. Drs. Bill Iacono and Monica Luciana lead the ABCD study at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Iacono is a Regents Professor and internationally recognized for his leadership of the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research. He uses family, adoptive, and twin study designs to investigate the development and etiology of common mental disorders, including substance use, antisocial, and major depressive disorders. Dr. Luciana is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and runs the Brain and Behavioral Processes Laboratory. Through longitudinal studies of brain and behavioral development, her work focuses on the interplay between executive functions and motivational drives (particularly reward seeking) and their neural substrates in influencing behavioral outcomes in adolescents. Current studies within both laboratories focus on whether normative use of alcohol, as well as marijuana use, impacts the course of brain and behavioral development in adolescence and into young adulthood.

Families who enroll in the ABCD Study will complete their assessments in Elliott Hall and at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, both located on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

To find out if you are eligible to participate in the ABCD Study at the University of Minnesota, or to request information, please call (612) 963-8770 or email us at [email protected].

Click here to learn more about our Study Procedures.