Leveraging bifactor modeling to test prospective direct and indirect effects of adolescent alcohol use and externalizing symptoms on the development of task-general executive functioning.

Adolescence is a period of substantial maturation in brain regions underlying Executive Functioning (EF). Adolescence is also associated with initiation and escalation of Alcohol Use (AU), and adolescent AU has been proposed to produce physiological and neurobiological events that derail healthy EF development. However, support has been mixed, which may be due to (1) failure to consider co-occurring externalizing symptoms (including other drug use) and poor social adaptation, and (2) heterogeneity and psychometric limitations in EF measures.

Negative Affect and Drinking among Indigenous Youth: Disaggregating Within- and Between-Person Effects.

Negative affect (depression/anxiety) and alcohol use among Indigenous youth in Canada remain a concern for many communities. Disparate rates of these struggles are understood to be a potential outcome of colonization and subsequent intergenerational trauma experienced by individuals, families, and communities. Using a longitudinal design, we examined change in alcohol use and negative affect, and reciprocal associations, among a group of Indigenous adolescents.

Effectiveness of Sexual Assault Protective Behaviors on the Daily Level: The Roles of Intoxication and Executive Control.

Young adult women engage in a variety of behaviors aimed at reducing their risk of sexual assault (SA), termed sexual assault protective behavioral strategies (SA-PBS), yet the evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of SA-PBS in reducing SA risk has been relatively sparse and inconclusive. The current study examined the use of SA-PBS, the factor structure of a diverse array of SA-PBS, and their association with the occurrence of SA. The influence of state- and trait-level moderators on the association between SA-PBS and SA events was also examined.

The role of effortful control in mitigating negative consequences associated with emerging adult drinking.

Background: Identifying factors that protect against alcohol-related negative consequences associated with emerging adult drinking is a critical public health issue. It has been proposed that high levels of self-regulation moderate risks associated with drinking, decreasing alcohol-related negative consequences. Past research testing this possibility is limited by a lack of advanced methodology for testing moderation and failure to consider facets of self-regulation.

The Acquired Preparedness Model of Cannabis Use in Emerging Adulthood: Comparing Within-Person and Between-Person Effects.

Objective: The acquired preparedness model (APM) posits that high sensitivity to reward biases individuals to learn and maintain positive outcome expectancies, which in turn increase substance use, and that high sensitivity to punishment biases individuals to learn and maintain negative outcome expectancies, decreasing use. Little work has applied the APM to cannabis use, particularly with longitudinal data and methods that separate within- and between-person associations. The current study addressed these gaps.

Reciprocal associations between implicit attitudes and drinking in emerging adulthood.

Background: Implicit alcohol attitudes are considered important in the etiology of drinking, and theory posits reciprocal associations between them. Research testing reciprocal associations between implicit attitudes (using the Implicit Association Task, IAT) and drinking is limited by a failure to consider multiple processes influencing performance on the IAT and to disaggregate within- and between-person effects. The current study addressed these limitations by using a diffusion model to analyze IAT data and Latent Curve Models with Structured Residuals to test reciprocal associations.

Developmental Cascade Effects of Maternal Depression on Offspring Substance Use Across Adolescence: Pathway Through Mother-Child Relationship Quality and Peer Deviancy.

There is evidence that maternal depression can disrupt adolescent social development and trigger a risk cascade to adolescent substance use that involves poor quality mother-child relationships (Lovejoy et al., 2000) and affiliation with deviant peers (Visser et al., 2012).

Alcohol-Specific Communication and Emerging Adult Offspring's Perceived Parental Approval and Drinking in the Context of Parent Alcohol Expectancies.

Background: There are mixed findings in the literature regarding the association between parental alcohol communication and offspring alcohol use. To clarify this association, this study tested a prospective mediated moderation model in which the association between parental communication about the risks of alcohol use and emerging adult offspring drinking was mediated by offspring perceived parental approval of drinking. Parental alcohol expectancies and use were tested as moderators of the link between communication and perceived approval.

Transverse Pedicle Angle Is Associated With Pelvic Incidence and Increased in Lumbar Isthmic Spondylolisthesis.

Study Design: Retrospective radiographic review.

Objectives: Investigate and quantify transverse pedicle angle (TPA), the medial-to-lateral pedicle angulation, and its potential association with pelvic incidence (PI) in patients with isthmic lumbar spondylolisthesis (ISLS) and compare to those with degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis (DSLS) and controls.

Methods: A total of 200 patients (64 ISLS, 70 DSLS, 66 control) were included.

An examination of reciprocal associations between substance use and effortful control across adolescence using a bifactor model of externalizing symptoms.

Early adolescence is thought to represent a window of vulnerability when exposure to substances is particularly harmful, partly because the neurotoxic effects of adolescent substance use may derail self-regulation development. However, previous studies fail to account for externalizing symptoms, such as aggression and delinquency, that accompany adolescent substance use and may also derail the development of self-regulation. The current study aims to clarify whether the neurotoxic effects of adolescent substance use are associated with deficits in effortful control (EC) after accounting for externalizing symptoms and to examine reciprocal relationships between EC, externalizing symptoms, and substance use.

Long-Term Effects of Early Adolescent Marijuana Use on Attentional and Inhibitory Control.

Objective: This study sought to examine the prospective effects of early adolescent marijuana use on late adolescent attentional and inhibitory control. Alcohol use, antisocial problems, and gender were included as statistical control variables.

Method: The community sample of 387 adolescents and a caregiver was drawn from a longitudinal study of adolescent substance use that included nine annual assessments.

Understanding Risk Factors for Opioid Overdose in Clinical Populations to Inform Treatment and Policy.

Overdoses involving opioid analgesics represent a significant public health problem in the United States. We reviewed the literature on risk factors for overdose, with a focus on studies that examine clinical populations of patients receiving opioids for pain and potential risk factors for overdose in these populations. A structured review resulted in 15 articles published between 2007 and 2015 that examined risk factors for fatal and nonfatal overdose in patients receiving opioid analgesics.

Childhood overweight/obesity and pediatric asthma: the role of parental perception of child weight status.

Childhood obesity and asthma are on the rise in the U.S. Clinical and epidemiological data suggest a link between the two, in which overweight and obese children are at higher risk for asthma.

An improved method for collecting breath from 3- to 7-year-old children.

Breath sampling and analysis provide healthcare professionals with a practical, noninvasive diagnostic measurement for children with a variety of gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. New biomarkers found in human breath have been investigated and provide the opportunity to diagnose bacterial overgrowth and other underlying causes of GI dysfunction. Although several protocols have been described previously regarding breath sampling, few have demonstrated the feasibility of collection in young children.