Early Life Adversity Predicts Reduced Hippocampal Volume in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

Purpose: Cross-sectional studies in adults have demonstrated associations between early life adversity (ELA) and reduced hippocampal volume, but the timing of these effects is not clear. The present study sought to examine whether ELA predicts changes in hippocampal volume over time in a large sample of early adolescents.

Methods: The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study provides a large dataset of tabulated neuroimaging, youth-reported adverse experiences, and parent-reported financial adversity from a sample of children around the United States.

Resilience to COVID-19: Socioeconomic Disadvantage Associated With Positive Caregiver-Youth Communication and Youth Preventative Actions.

Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with larger COVID-19 disease burdens and pandemic-related economic impacts. We utilized the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study to understand how family- and neighborhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage relate to disease burden, family communication, and preventative responses to the pandemic in over 6,000 youth-caregiver dyads. Data were collected at three timepoints (May-August 2020).

The Pandemic's Toll on Young Adolescents: Prevention and Intervention Targets to Preserve Their Mental Health.

Purpose: Adolescence is characterized by dramatic physical, social, and emotional changes, making teens particularly vulnerable to the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This longitudinal study identifies young adolescents who are most vulnerable to the psychological toll of the pandemic and provides insights to inform strategies to help adolescents cope better in times of crisis.

Methods: A data-driven approach was applied to a longitudinal, demographically diverse cohort of more than 3,000 young adolescents (11-14 years) participating in the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study in the United States, including multiple prepandemic visits and three assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic (May-August 2020).

Parental Knowledge/Monitoring and Depressive Symptoms During Adolescence: Protective Factor or Spurious Association?

Parental knowledge/monitoring is negatively associated with adolescents' depressive symptoms, suggesting monitoring could be a target for prevention and treatment. However, no study has rigorously addressed the possibility that this association is spurious, leaving the clinical and etiological implications unclear. The goal of this study was to conduct a more rigorous test of whether knowledge/monitoring is causally related to depressive symptoms.

Passive Sensing of Preteens' Smartphone Use: An Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Cohort Substudy.

Background: Concerns abound regarding childhood smartphone use, but studies to date have largely relied on self-reported screen use. Self-reporting of screen use is known to be misreported by pediatric samples and their parents, limiting the accurate determination of the impact of screen use on social, emotional, and cognitive development. Thus, a more passive, objective measurement of smartphone screen use among children is needed.

Longitudinal Impact of Childhood Adversity on Early Adolescent Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the ABCD Study Cohort: Does Race or Ethnicity Moderate Findings?

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, mental health among youth has been negatively affected. Youth with a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), as well as youth from minoritized racial-ethnic backgrounds, may be especially vulnerable to experiencing COVID-19-related distress. The aims of this study are to examine whether exposure to pre-pandemic ACEs predicts mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in youth and whether racial-ethnic background moderates these effects.

Early Adolescent Substance Use Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Survey in the ABCD Study Cohort.

Purpose: Evaluate changes in early adolescent substance use during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic using a prospective, longitudinal, nationwide cohort.

Methods: Participants were enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. A total of 7,842 youth (mean age = 12.

Correspondence Between Perceived Pubertal Development and Hormone Levels in 9-10 Year-Olds From the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

Aim: To examine individual variability between perceived physical features and hormones of pubertal maturation in 9-10-year-old children as a function of sociodemographic characteristics.

Methods: Cross-sectional metrics of puberty were utilized from the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study-a multi-site sample of 9-10 year-olds (n = 11,875)-and included perceived physical features the pubertal development scale (PDS) and child salivary hormone levels (dehydroepiandrosterone and testosterone in all, and estradiol in females). Multi-level models examined the relationships among sociodemographic measures, physical features, and hormone levels.

Screen media activity does not displace other recreational activities among 9-10 year-old youth: a cross-sectional ABCD study®.

Background: Screen media is among the most common recreational activities engaged in by children. The displacement hypothesis predicts that increased time spent on screen media activity (SMA) may be at the expense of engagement with other recreational activities, such as sport, music, and art. This study examined associations between non-educational SMA and recreational activity endorsement in 9-10-year-olds, when accounting for other individual (i.

Best Practices for Engaging Pregnant and Postpartum Women at Risk of Substance Use in Longitudinal Research Studies: a Qualitative Examination of Participant Preferences.

There are significant barriers in engaging pregnant and postpartum women that are considered high-risk (e.g., those experiencing substance use and/or substance use disorders (SUD)) into longitudinal research studies.

Association of Prenatal Opioid Exposure With Precentral Gyrus Volume in Children.

This cross-sectional study identifies structural differences of the precentral gyrus among children with reported prenatal opioid exposure compared with children with no reported exposure, controlling for present social factors.

Image processing and analysis methods for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is an ongoing, nationwide study of the effects of environmental influences on behavioral and brain development in adolescents. The main objective of the study is to recruit and assess over eleven thousand 9-10-year-olds and follow them over the course of 10 years to characterize normative brain and cognitive development, the many factors that influence brain development, and the effects of those factors on mental health and other outcomes. The study employs state-of-the-art multimodal brain imaging, cognitive and clinical assessments, bioassays, and careful assessment of substance use, environment, psychopathological symptoms, and social functioning.

Screen media activity and brain structure in youth: Evidence for diverse structural correlation networks from the ABCD study.

The adolescent brain undergoes profound structural changes which is influenced by many factors. Screen media activity (SMA; e.g.

Obesity is associated with altered mid-insula functional connectivity to limbic regions underlying appetitive responses to foods.

Obesity is fundamentally a disorder of energy balance. In obese individuals, more energy is consumed than is expended, leading to excessive weight gain through the accumulation of adipose tissue. Complications arising from obesity, including cardiovascular disease, elevated peripheral inflammation, and the development of Type II diabetes, make obesity one of the leading preventable causes of morbidity and mortality.

Resting-state brain connectivity after surgical and behavioral weight loss.

Objective: Changes in food-cue neural reactivity associated with behavioral and surgical weight loss interventions have been reported. Resting functional connectivity represents tonic neural activity that may contribute to weight loss success. This study explores whether intervention type is associated with differences in functional connectivity after weight loss.

Brain function predictors and outcome of weight loss and weight loss maintenance.

Obesity rates are associated with public health consequences and rising health care costs. Weight loss interventions, while effective, do not work for everyone, and weight regain is a significant problem. Eating behavior is influenced by a convergence of processes in the brain, including homeostatic factors and motivational processing that are important contributors to overeating.

Neuroimaging studies of factors related to exercise: rationale and design of a 9 month trial.

The prevalence of obesity is high resulting from chronic imbalances between energy intake and expenditure. On the expenditure side, regular exercise is associated with health benefits, including enhanced brain function. The benefits of exercise are not immediate and require persistence to be realized.

Evening hyperphagia and food motivation: a preliminary study of neural mechanisms.

Evening hyperphagia (EH; consumption of ≥25% of total daily calories after the evening meal) is a circadian delay in the pattern of daily food intake and is a core criterion of night eating syndrome (Allison et al., 2010). This preliminary study examined the brain response to food cues using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in seven obese adults with EH compared to seven obese adults without EH.

A comparison of functional brain changes associated with surgical versus behavioral weight loss.

Objective: Few studies have examined brain changes in response to effective weight loss; none have compared different methods of weight-loss intervention. Functional brain changes associated with a behavioral weight loss intervention to those associated with bariatric surgery were compared.

Design And Methods: Fifteen obese participants were recruited prior to adjustable gastric banding surgery and 16 obese participants were recruited prior to a behavioral diet intervention.

Time and sex-dependent effects of an adenosine A2A/A1 receptor antagonist on motivation to self-administer cocaine in rats.

Adenosine is an important neuromodulator, known to interact with both dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems to influence psychostimulant action. In the present study, we examined the effects of ATL444, a novel adenosine receptor antagonist, on motivation for cocaine in male and female rats. Adult male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to self-administer cocaine (1.

Severity of drinking as a predictor of efficacy of the combination of ondansetron and topiramate in rat models of ethanol consumption and relapse.

Rationale: Alcohol dependence is the third leading cause of preventable death in the USA. While single-agent pharmacotherapies have variable efficacy, medication combinations may produce additive effects by modulating multiple neural pathways.

Objectives: Here, we examined in animal models of ethanol consumption and relapse the combined effects of ondansetron (a serotonin-3 antagonist) and topiramate (a GABA/glutamate modulator), two medications with demonstrated efficacy for treating alcohol dependence, hypothesizing that their combination would produce a more efficacious response.

Incubation of nicotine seeking is associated with enhanced protein kinase A-regulated signaling of dopamine- and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein of 32 kDa in the insular cortex.

A recent clinical study demonstrated that damage to the insular cortex can disrupt tobacco addiction. The neurobiological mechanisms for this effect are not yet understood. In this study we used an animal model of nicotine addiction to examine the possibility that changes in insular cortex levels of dopamine (DA)- and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein of 32 kDa (DARPP-32), a phosphoprotein enriched in DA neurons containing DA D1 receptors, may be associated with changes in vulnerability to nicotine addiction.