Cascades From Early Adolescent Impulsivity to Late Adolescent Antisocial Personality Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder.

Purpose: The behavioral disinhibition model (BDM) posits that a liability toward impulsivity evident by early adolescence underlies the coemergence of antisocial behavior and alcohol use (i.e., problem behaviors) in early-adolescence to mid-adolescence, but that the subsequent development of these problem behaviors (rather than impulsivity itself) predicts the emergence of antisocial personality disorder (APD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) in late adolescence.

Working Memory Development and Motor Vehicle Crashes in Young Drivers.

Importance: Adolescent drivers have the highest rate of motor vehicle crashes, and among equally novice drivers, crash risk is inversely age graded. Working memory (WM), crucial to driving hazard awareness, is also age graded, with ongoing development into late adolescence. Variability in WM capacity and growth trajectory positions WM as a candidate crash risk factor for study, clinical screening, and possible preventative intervention.

Disentangling longitudinal relations between youth cannabis use, peer cannabis use, and conduct problems: developmental cascading links to cannabis use disorder.

Aims: To determine whether cannabis use during adolescence can increase risk not only for cannabis use disorder (CUD) but also for conduct problems, potentially mediated by exposure to peers who use cannabis.

Design, Setting, Participants: Longitudinal study analyzing four waves of longitudinal data from 364 racially and socio-economically diverse, urban, US community youth (at baseline: M  = 13.51 (0.

Modeling Trajectories of Sensation Seeking and Impulsivity Dimensions from Early to Late Adolescence: Universal Trends or Distinct Sub-groups?

Developmental imbalance models attribute the rise in risk-taking during adolescence to a universal imbalance between rising reward sensitivity and lagging cognitive control. This study tested predictions of an alternate Lifespan Wisdom Model that distinguishes between exploratory/adaptive (e.g.

Turning 1 Year of Age in a Low Socioeconomic Environment: A Portrait of Disadvantage.

Unlabelled: In the United States today, 16 million children are growing up poor. Few studies report multiple environmental factors associated with poverty during the first year of life and effects on infant development.

Objectives: To evaluate maternal, home, and neighborhood environment of low and higher socioeconomic status (SES) infants from birth to 1 year and to evaluate the impact of SES and environment on infant developmental outcome at 1 year.

Working memory ability and early drug use progression as predictors of adolescent substance use disorders.

Aims: To test a neurobehavioral model of adolescent substance use disorder (SUD) resulting from an imbalance between a hyperactive reward motivation system and a hypoactive executive control system. Specifically, we tested (1) if early weakness in working memory (WM) and associated imbalance indicators of acting-without-thinking (AWT) and delay discounting (DD) predict SUD in late adolescence and (2) if early drug use progression mediates this relation.

Design: Five waves of longitudinal data collected annually from 2005 to 2010, with a final follow-up in 2012.

Effect of socioeconomic status (SES) disparity on neural development in female African-American infants at age 1 month.

There is increasing interest in both the cumulative and long-term impact of early life adversity on brain structure and function, especially as the brain is both highly vulnerable and highly adaptive during childhood. Relationships between SES and neural development have been shown in children older than age 2 years. Less is known regarding the impact of SES on neural development in children before age 2.

Relation of Childhood Home Environment to Cortical Thickness in Late Adolescence: Specificity of Experience and Timing.

What are the long-term effects of childhood experience on brain development? Research with animals shows that the quality of environmental stimulation and parental nurturance both play important roles in shaping lifelong brain structure and function. Human research has so far been limited to the effects of abnormal experience and pathological development. Using a unique longitudinal dataset of in-home measures of childhood experience at ages 4 and 8 and MRI acquired in late adolescence, we were able to relate normal variation in childhood experience to later life cortical thickness.

Effect of socioeconomic status disparity on child language and neural outcome: how early is early?

It is not news that poverty adversely affects child outcome. The literature is replete with reports of deleterious effects on developmental outcome, cognitive function, and school performance in children and youth. Causative factors include poor nutrition, exposure to toxins, inadequate parenting, lack of cognitive stimulation, unstable social support, genetics, and toxic environments.

Socioeconomic (SES) differences in language are evident in female infants at 7months of age.

Background: Language skills, strongly linked to academic success, are known to differ by socioeconomic status (SES), with lower SES individuals performing less well than higher SES.

Aims: To examine the effect of SES on infant language at 7months of age and the relationship between maternal vocabulary skills and infant language function. To determine if the relationships between SES and infant language are mediated by maternal vocabulary skills.

Stronger Working Memory Reduces Sexual Risk Taking in Adolescents, Even After Controlling for Parental Influences.

This study examined the prospective influence of adolescent working memory (WM) on changes in impulsivity and sexual risk taking and assessed whether this relation could be explained by confounding effects of parental influences. Data from 360 community adolescents (M  = 13.5 ± 0.

Experimentation versus progression in adolescent drug use: A test of an emerging neurobehavioral imbalance model.

Based on an emerging neuroscience model of addiction, this study examines how an imbalance between two neurobehavioral systems (reward motivation and executive control) can distinguish between early adolescent progressive drug use and mere experimentation with drugs. Data from four annual assessments of a community cohort (N = 382) of 11- to 13-year-olds were analyzed to model heterogeneity in patterns of early drug use. Baseline assessments of working memory (an indicator of the functional integrity of the executive control system) and three dimensions of impulsivity (characterizing the balance between reward seeking and executive control systems) were used to predict heterogeneous latent classes of drug use trajectories from early to midadolescence.

Mapping the trajectory of socioeconomic disparity in working memory: parental and neighborhood factors.

Working memory (WM) is positively correlated with socioeconomic status (SES). It is not clear, however, if SES predicts the rate of WM development over time or whether SES effects are specific to family rather than neighborhood SES. A community sample of children (n = 316) enrolled between ages 10 and 13 completed four annual assessments of WM.

The effect of socioeconomic status on the language outcome of preterm infants at toddler age.

Background: Independently, both prematurity and low socioeconomic status (SES) compromise language outcome but less is known regarding the effects of low SES on outcome of prior preterm infants at toddler age.

Aim: To assess SES effects on the language outcome of prior preterm infants at toddler age.

Study Design: Retrospective chart review of infants born at ≤32 weeks, matched for gestational age (GA), birth weight (BW), chronic lung disease (CLD), periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), right and left intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH-R, L), and age at Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (BSID-III) testing.

Selective impact of early parental responsivity on adolescent stress reactivity.

Research in animals has shown that early life experience, particularly parenting behaviors, influences later-life stress reactivity. Despite the tremendous relevance of this finding to human development and brain function, it has not been tested prospectively in humans. In this study two aspects of parenting were measured at age 4 in a sample of healthy, low socioeconomic status, African American children, and stress reactivity was measured in the same children 11-14 years later using a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (n = 55).

Neighborhood disadvantage and adolescent stress reactivity.

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher levels of life stress, which in turn affect stress physiology. SES is related to basal cortisol and diurnal change, but it is not clear if SES is associated with cortisol reactivity to stress. To address this question, we examined the relationship between two indices of SES, parental education and concentrated neighborhood disadvantage, and the cortisol reactivity of African-American adolescents to a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST).

Working memory ability predicts trajectories of early alcohol use in adolescents: the mediational role of impulsivity.

Aims: (i) To evaluate the role of pre-existing weakness in working memory ability (WM) as a risk factor for early alcohol use as mediated by different forms of impulsivity and (ii) to assess the adverse effects of progressive alcohol use on variations in WM over time.

Design, Setting And Participants: A community sample of 358 adolescents [48% males, mean(age) (baseline) = 11.4 ± 0.

Early adolescent sexual debut: the mediating role of working memory ability, sensation seeking, and impulsivity.

Although deficits in working memory ability have been implicated in suboptimal decision making and risk taking among adolescents, its influence on early sexual initiation has so far not been examined. Analyzing 2 waves of panel data from a community sample of adolescents (N = 347; Mean age[baseline] = 13.4 years), assessed 1 year apart, the present study tested the hypothesis that weak working memory ability predicts early sexual initiation and explored whether this relationship is mediated by sensation seeking and 2 forms of impulsivity, namely acting-without-thinking and temporal discounting.

Longitudinal follow-up of poor inner-city youth between ages 8 and 18: intentions versus reality.

Objectives: (1) To document, at ages 8 to 10, children's perceptions of their future and, at ages 16 to 18, youth outcomes; and (2) to assess early childhood factors associated with trajectory-altering events (TAEs), defined as youth risk behaviors that may modify developmental trajectories.

Methods: A prospective longitudinal study of 97 poor, inner-city, African American youth followed since birth who completed (1) early childhood environment, cognitive, and social-emotional evaluations, as well as an inventory at ages 8 to 10 of perceptions of their futures; and (2) evaluation for presence or absence of 4 TAEs documented at ages 16 to 18: drug use, adjudication, school failure, and teen parenthood.

Results: At age 9.

Does adolescent risk taking imply weak executive function? A prospective study of relations between working memory performance, impulsivity, and risk taking in early adolescence.

Studies of brain development suggest that the increase in risk taking observed during adolescence may be due to insufficient prefrontal executive function compared to a more rapidly developing subcortical motivation system. We examined executive function as assessed by working memory ability in a community sample of youth (n = 387, ages 10 to 12 at baseline) in three annual assessments to determine its relation to two forms of impulsivity (sensation seeking and acting without thinking) and a wide range of risk and externalizing behavior. Using structural equation modeling, we tested a model in which differential activation of the dorsal and ventral striatum produces imbalance in the function of these brain regions.

Is executive cognitive function associated with youth gambling?

Our objectives for this report were to identify trajectories of youth gambling behavior, and to examine their relation to executive cognitive function (ECF) and associated problem behaviors. Philadelphia school children, enrolled at ages 10-12 years (n = 387; 49% male), completed three annual assessments of risk behaviors, ECF, impulsivity, problem behaviors and demographics. Across ages 10-15 years, using methods from Nagin et al.

Adolescents with and without gestational cocaine exposure: Longitudinal analysis of inhibitory control, memory and receptive language.

Preclinical studies of gestational cocaine exposure (GCE) show evidence of changes in brain function at the anatomical, physiological, and behavioral levels, to include effects on developing dopaminergic systems. In contrast, human studies have produced less consistent results, with most showing small effects or no effects on developmental outcomes. Important changes in brain structure and function occur through adolescence, therefore it is possible that prenatal cocaine exposure has latent effects on neurocognitive (NC) outcome that do not manifest until adolescence or young adulthood.