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Substantial increases in depression at the outset of the pandemic were previously reported in NCANDA, a longitudinal sample of adolescents and young adults. The current NCANDA study examined depression symptoms before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluated the influence of stressors and social behavior (e.g., in-person and online socializing) with linear mixed effects models. A strong, positive association between COVID-19-related stressors and depression symptoms was observed. The frequency of in-person socializing did not account for the totality of the changes in depression observed during the early COVID-19 pandemic. It may be that pandemic-related stressors counteracted the benefits of in-person interactions during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies can continue to elucidate the interactions among psychosocial, genetic, and behavioral factors contributing to depression symptoms in the unprecedented context of the COVID-19 pandemic., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Cummins et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Increasing diversity has become a priority for all fields working with human subjects due to historic exclusions and misrepresentations of participants with minoritized identities. To create a more representative and generalizable science of alcohol use, the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA) and its official journal, Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research (ACER), have increasingly incorporated diversity and inclusion into their posted values and programming., Methods: We analyzed the content of articles published in ACER from 2010 through 2022 (6 years before and after the formation of RSA's Diversity Committee) to assess the reporting of participants' demographic information and whether there has been increased inclusion of diverse samples in alcohol research over time. Our team screened 3292 abstracts for data extraction; studies were included if they were primary analyses of data collected from human subjects (n = 1043)., Results: Reporting of all demographic variables increased over time, with significant increases in reporting for race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status (SES), income, and educational attainment. Demographic variables were also increasingly used in analyses. However, representation of research outside the United States diminished significantly over time., Conclusions: We provide recommended journal article reporting standards for ACER to continue the positive progress in reporting demographics in alcohol research and facilitate meta-analyses examining demographic modulation and the impact of social determinants of health., (© 2024 Research Society on Alcohol.)

Introduction: Consumption of fast food has been linked to psychiatric distress, violent behaviors, and impulsivity in adolescents. The relationship between eating fast food, anger, and impulsivity has not been widely investigated. The National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence community-based cohort consists of 831 youth, half at elevated risk factors for substance use disorders during adolescence, followed annually., Methods: Impulsivity using Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, and Sensation Seeking Impulsive Behavior scale from annual assessments was examined in relation to self-reported fast-food consumption frequency and mobile application questions of anger. This study tested the hypotheses that youth anger may be predicted by fast-food consumption frequency and impulsivity using multiple regression, in addition to whether adolescent fast-food consumption frequency may be predicted by anger and impulsivity., Results: Among youth, higher anger levels and impulsivity predicted greater frequency of fast-food consumption, and greater fast-food consumption frequency and impulsivity predicted higher anger levels., Conclusions: This study's longitudinal findings are consistent with those of other studies that have found fast-food consumption and anger associated with impulsivity and also reveal a bidirectional link between anger and fast-food consumption. These results may point attention to food selection considerations for those at risk of anger and poorer psychiatric outcomes., (© 2024 The Author(s).)

Background and Aims: Recently, we demonstrated that a distinct pattern of structural covariance networks (SCN) from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-derived measurements of brain cortical thickness characterized young adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and predicted current and future problematic drinking in adolescents relative to controls. Here, we establish the robustness and value of SCN for identifying heavy alcohol users in three additional independent studies., Design and Setting: Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies using data from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition and Genetics (PING) study (n = 400, age range = 14-22 years), the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) (n = 272, age range = 17-22 years) and the Human Connectome Project (HCP) (n = 375, age range = 22-37 years)., Cases: Cases were defined based on heavy alcohol use patterns or former alcohol use disorder (AUD) diagnoses: 50, 68 and 61 cases were identified. Controls had none or low alcohol use or absence of AUD: 350, 204 and 314 controls were selected., Measurements: Graph theory metrics of segregation and integration were used to summarize SCN., Findings: Mirroring our prior findings, and across the three data sets, cases had a lower clustering coefficient [area under the curve (AUC) = -0.029, P = 0.002], lower modularity (AUC = -0.14, P = 0.004), lower average shortest path length (AUC = -0.078, P = 0.017) and higher global efficiency (AUC = 0.007, P = 0.010). Local efficiency differences were marginal (AUC = -0.017, P = 0.052). That is, cases exhibited lower network segregation and higher integration, suggesting that adjacent nodes (i.e. brain regions) were less similar in thickness whereas spatially distant nodes were more similar., Conclusion: Structural covariance network (SCN) differences in the brain appear to constitute an early marker of heavy alcohol use in three new data sets and, more generally, demonstrate the utility of SCN-derived metrics to detect brain-related psychopathology., (© 2023 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Circadian rhythm disturbances, especially circadian phase delays are associated with impulsive behaviors and have been implicated in psychiatric disorders. Chronotype is a developmentally regulated proxy measure of circadian phase. Past studies have investigated the relationship between chronotype and trauma and found that trauma is associated with evening chronotypes, suggesting the course of chronotype development may be affected by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). However, the relationships among chronotype, impulsivity and ACEs have largely been studied in a pairwise manner using small, cross-sectional cohorts. We hypothesized that in a cohort of high-risk youth, childhood trauma would be associated with later chronotype, and later chronotype would be associated with higher rates of impulsivity. We analyzed a cross-sectional sample (n = 966) from Year 2 of adolescents at high risk for psychiatric disorders from the ABCD study who were characterized for chronotype, stressful life events, and impulsivity. We used a hierarchical regression model to examine the relationship between chronotype, stressful life events, and impulsivity using the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ), the Life Events Scale, Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance and Sensation Seeking (UPPS) Impulsive Behavior scale. We found associations between eveningness, stressful life events, and all dimensions of impulsivity. Increased eveningness was associated with a higher number of stressful life events and increased impulsivity. Understanding the role of stressful life events and impulsivity in those predisposed towards eveningness is useful because it may improve our understanding of the biological mechanisms that contribute to psychiatric disorders, and lead to better prevention and treatment efforts using interventions such as increased lifestyle regularity and daytime light exposure., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Between 20 % and 30 % of teens suffer from depression or anxiety before reaching adulthood, and up to half also use or misuse alcohol. Although theories suggest bidirectional links between harmful alcohol use (e.g., binge drinking) and internalizing symptoms (i.e., depression and anxiety), empirical evidence to-date has been mixed. Systematic reviews have attributed mixed findings to limitations in study design, such as the utilization of between-person analyses and the focus on unidirectional effects. The goal of this study was to address these limitations by assessing bidirectional within-person associations between internalizing symptoms and binge drinking over the course of 5 years in the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) sample, a large cohort recruited at ages 12-21 and followed annually on substance use and psychiatric functioning., Methods: We used latent curve models with structured residuals to examine within-person lagged associations between depression, anxiety, and past month counts of binge drinking using NCANDA data (N = 831). Analyses were supplemented with post-hoc power simulations., Results: We found marginal evidence linking binge drinking with subsequent depression symptoms one year later among females. We found no evidence that depression or anxiety predicted subsequent binge drinking despite sufficient power., Conclusions: Social and cognitive consequences of binge drinking may predict later depression symptoms in adolescence and young adulthood for young women, though there was little evidence favoring self-medication models for binge drinking. We note several moderating variables and common factor mechanisms that may better explain this link., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Accurate measurement of trajectories in longitudinal studies, considered the gold standard method for tracking functional growth during adolescence, decline in aging, and change after head injury, is subject to confounding by testing experience., Methods: We measured change in cognitive and motor abilities over four test sessions (baseline and three annual assessments) in 154 male and 165 female participants (baseline age 12-21 years) from the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) study. At each of the four test sessions, these participants were given a test battery using computerized administration and traditional pencil and paper tests that yielded accuracy and speed measures for multiple component cognitive (Abstraction, Attention, Emotion, Episodic memory, Working memory, and General Ability) and motor (Ataxia and Speed) functions. The analysis aim was to dissociate neurodevelopment from testing experience by using an adaptation of the twice-minus-once tested method, which calculated the difference between longitudinal change (comprising developmental plus practice effects) and practice-free initial cross-sectional performance for each consecutive pairs of test sessions. Accordingly, the first set of analyses quantified the effects of learning (i.e., prior test experience) on accuracy and after speed domain scores. Then developmental effects were  determined for each domain for accuracy and speed having removed the measured learning effects., Results: The greatest gains in performance occurred between the first and second sessions, especially in younger participants, regardless of sex, but practice gains continued to accrue thereafter for several functions. For all 8 accuracy composite scores, the developmental effect after accounting for learning was significant across age and was adequately described by linear fits. The learning-adjusted developmental effects for speed were adequately described by linear fits for Abstraction, Emotion, Episodic Memory, General Ability, and Motor scores, although a nonlinear fit was better for Attention, Working Memory, and Average Speed scores., Conclusion: Thus, what appeared as accelerated cognitive and motor development was, in most cases, attributable to learning. Recognition of the substantial influence of prior testing experience is critical for accurate characterization of normal development and for developing norms for clinical neuropsychological investigations of conditions affecting the brain., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

The factor structure of neuropsychological functioning among a large sample (N = 831) of American youth (ages 12-21 at baseline) was investigated in order to identify an optimal model. Candidate models were selected based on their potential to provide service to the study of adolescent development and the effects of heavy episodic alcohol consumption. Data on neuropsychological functioning were obtained from the NCANDA study. This is a longitudinal community study of the effects of alcohol exposure on neurodevelopment. Three conceptually motivated and one empirically motivated factor analysis model of neuropsychological domains were compared based on penalized-likelihood selection criteria and model fit statistics. Two conceptually-motivated models were found to have adequate fit and pattern invariance to function as a measurement model for the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (Penn CNB) anchored neuropsychological battery in NCANDA. Corroboration of previous factor analysis models was obtained, in addition to the identification of an alternative factor model that has higher discriminant capacity for neuropsychological domains hypothesized to be most sensitive to alcohol exposure in human adolescents. The findings support the use of a factor model developed originally for the Penn CNB and a model developed specifically for the NCANDA project. The NCANDA 8-Factor Model has conceptual and empirical advantages that were identified in the current and prior studies. These advantages are particularly valuable when applied in alcohol research settings., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objective: Executive control continues to develop throughout adolescence and is vulnerable to alcohol use. Although longitudinal assessment is ideal for tracking executive function development and onset of alcohol use, prior testing experience must be distinguished from developmental trajectories., Method: We used the Stroop Match-to-Sample task to examine the improvement of processing speed and specific cognitive and motor control over 4 years in 445 adolescents. The twice-minus-once-tested method was used and expanded to four test sessions to delineate prior experience (i.e., learning) from development. A General Additive Model evaluated the predictive value of age and sex on executive function development and potential influences of alcohol use on development., Results: Results revealed strong learning between the first two assessments. Adolescents significantly improved their speed processing over 4 years. Compared with boys, girls enhanced ability to control cognitive interference and motor reactions. Finally, the influence of alcohol use initiation was tested over 4 years for development in 110 no/low, 110 moderate/heavy age- and sex-matched drinkers; alcohol effects were not detected in the matched groups., Conclusions: Estimation of learning effects is crucial for examining developmental changes longitudinally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Many psychosocial factors have been implicated in the onset and escalation of substance use in adolescence and young adulthood. Typically, each factor explains a small amount of the variance in substance use outcomes, and effects are typically applied across a broad range of ages or computed from cross-sectional data. The current study evaluated the association of factors including social influence (e.g., peer substance use), cognitive features (e.g., alcohol expectancies), and personality and emotional characteristics (e.g., impulsivity and typical responses to stress) in substance use throughout adolescence and emerging adulthood (ages 13-25; N = 798). Mixed-effects models tailored for the accelerated longitudinal design employed in this study were constructed with psychosocial and developmental factors predicting alcohol and cannabis use. As most participants in the sample exhibited little or no substance use at baseline by design, we excluded baseline assessments and examined data from follow-up years 1, 2, 3, and 4. Interactions between age cohort, change in age, and psychosocial predictors of substance use revealed differing associations over the developmental window for alcohol and cannabis use. For example, positive alcohol expectancies and sensation seeking were most strongly associated with greater drinking after age 18, whereas sensation seeking was associated with increased cannabis use as early as age 15. Higher emotion regulation skills led to less cannabis use in younger ages (i.e., shallower slopes below age 17), but this protective effect diminished after age 17. Results highlight developmentally important factors that differentially contribute to substance use in adolescence and young adulthood. We also demonstrate the importance of developmentally sensitive analyses that maximize the value of data from accelerated longitudinal designs., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Adolescents are at increased risk of developing major depressive disorder (MDD) than many other age groups. Although the neural correlates of MDD in adults have been studied prospectively, such adolescent depression studies are mainly cross-sectional. We extracted data regarding the relationship between cortical thickness and later development of adolescent MDD from a national community study that uses an accelerated longitudinal design to examine the psychological, environmental, and neural differences related to drinking and brain development., Methods: 692 subjects (age 12-21 years; 50% female) without a history of MDD were assessed with structural neuroimaging at baseline. We compared those 101 subjects who transitioned to MDD by 1-year follow-up to those who remained non-depressed over the same time period. FreeSurfer's autosegmentation process estimated vertex-wide cortical thicknesses and its Query, Design, Estimate, Contrast (Qdec) application investigated cortical thickness between those who later developed MDD and those who remained without MDD (Monte Carlo corrected for multiple comparisons, vertex-wise cluster threshold of 1.3, p < 0.01)., Results: Those who transitioned in the next year to MDD had, at baseline, thinner cortices in the superior frontal cortex, precentral and postcentral regions, and superior temporal cortex, above and beyond effects attributable to age and sex. No cortical thickness sex differences or sex-by-depression interactions were observed., Limitations: A larger sample size could improve statistical power and future investigations will be needed to confirm our results., Conclusions: Thinner cortices over frontal and temporal regions may be linked to enhanced vulnerability for future depression during the adolescent-young adulthood transition., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Alcohol use and exposure to psychological trauma frequently co-occur in adolescence and share many risk factors. Both exposures have deleterious effects on the brain during this sensitive developmental period, particularly on the hippocampus and amygdala. However, very little is known about the individual and interactive effects of trauma and alcohol exposure and their specific effects on functionally distinct substructures within the adolescent hippocampus and amygdala. Adolescents from a large longitudinal sample (N = 803, 2684 scans, 51% female, and 75% White/Caucasian) ranging in age from 12 to 21 years were interviewed about exposure to traumatic events at their baseline evaluation. Assessments for alcohol use and structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were completed at baseline and repeated annually to examine neurodevelopmental trajectories. Hippocampal and amygdala subregions were segmented using Freesurfer v6.0 tools, followed by volumetric analysis with generalized additive mixed models. Longitudinal statistical models examined the effects of cumulative lifetime trauma measured at baseline and alcohol use measured annually on trajectories of hippocampal and amygdala subregions, while controlling for covariates known to impact brain development. Greater alcohol use, quantified using the Cahalan scale and measured annually, was associated with smaller whole hippocampus (β = -12.0, p FDR  = 0.009) and left hippocampus tail volumes (β = -1.2, p FDR  = 0.048), and larger right CA3 head (β = 0.4, p FDR  = 0.027) and left subiculum (β = 0.7, p FDR  = 0.046) volumes of the hippocampus. In the amygdala, greater alcohol use was associated with larger right basal nucleus volume (β = 1.3, p FDR  = 0.040). The effect of traumatic life events measured at baseline was associated with larger right CA3 head volume (β = 1.3, p FDR  = 0.041) in the hippocampus. We observed an interaction between baseline trauma and within-person age change where younger adolescents with greater trauma exposure at baseline had smaller left hippocampal subfield volumes in the subiculum (β = 0.3, p FDR  = 0.029) and molecular layer HP head (β = 0.3, p FDR  = 0.041). The interaction also revealed that older adolescents with greater trauma exposure at baseline had larger right amygdala nucleus volume in the paralaminar nucleus (β = 0.1, p FDR  = 0.045), yet smaller whole amygdala volume overall (β = -3.7, p FDR  = 0.003). Lastly, we observed an interaction between alcohol use and baseline trauma such that adolescents who reported greater alcohol use with greater baseline trauma showed smaller right hippocampal subfield volumes in the CA1 head (β = -1.1, p FDR  = 0.011) and hippocampal head (β = -2.6, p FDR  = 0.025), yet larger whole hippocampus volume overall (β = 10.0, p FDR  = 0.032). Cumulative lifetime trauma measured at baseline and alcohol use measured annually interact to affect the volume and trajectory of hippocampal and amygdala substructures (measured via structural MRI annually), regions that are essential for emotion regulation and memory. Our findings demonstrate the value of examining these substructures and support the hypothesis that the amygdala and hippocampus are not homogeneous brain regions.

Exogenous causes, such as alcohol use, and endogenous factors, such as temperament and sex, can modulate developmental trajectories of adolescent neurofunctional maturation. We examined how these factors affect sexual dimorphism in brain functional networks in youth drinking below diagnostic threshold for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Based on the 3-year, annually acquired, longitudinal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of 526 adolescents (12-21 years at baseline) from the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) cohort, developmental trajectories of 23 intrinsic functional networks (IFNs) were analyzed for (1) sexual dimorphism in 259 participants who were no-to-low drinkers throughout this period; (2) sex-alcohol interactions in two age- and sex-matched NCANDA subgroups (N = 76 each), half no-to-low, and half moderate-to-heavy drinkers; and (3) moderating effects of gender-specific alcohol dose effects and a multifactorial impulsivity measure on IFN connectivity in all NCANDA participants. Results showed that sex differences in no-to-low drinkers diminished with age in the inferior-occipital network, yet girls had weaker within-network connectivity than boys in six other networks. Effects of adolescent alcohol use were more pronounced in girls than boys in three IFNs. In particular, girls showed greater within-network connectivity in two motor networks with more alcohol consumption, and these effects were mediated by sensation-seeking only in girls. Our results implied that drinking might attenuate the naturally diminishing sexual differences by disrupting the maturation of network efficiency more severely in girls. The sex-alcohol-dose effect might explain why women are at higher risk of alcohol-related health and psychosocial consequences than men., (© 2020 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Background: Longitudinal studies of many health behaviors often rely on infrequent self-report assessments. The measurement of psychoactive substance use among youth is expected to improve with more frequent mobile assessments, which can reduce recall bias. Researchers have used mobile devices for longitudinal research, but studies that last years and assess youth continuously at a fine-grained, temporal level (eg, weekly) are rare. A tailored mobile app (mNCANDA [mobile National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence]) and a brief assessment protocol were designed specifically to provide a feasible platform to elicit responses to health behavior assessments in longitudinal studies, including NCANDA (National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence)., Objective: This study aimed to determine whether an acceptable mobile app system could provide repeatable and valid assessment of youth's health behaviors in different developmental stages over extended follow-up., Methods: Participants were recruited (n=534; aged 17-28 years) from a larger longitudinal study of neurodevelopment. Participants used mNCANDA to register reports of their behaviors for up to 18 months. Response rates as a function of time measured using mNCANDA and participant age were modeled using generalized estimating equations to evaluate response rate stability and age effects. Substance use reports captured using mNCANDA were compared with responses from standardized interviews to assess concurrent validity. Reactivity was assessed by evaluating patterns of change in substance use after participants initiated weekly reports via mNCANDA. Quantitative feedback about the app was obtained from the participants. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a subset of participants who used the app for at least one month to obtain feedback on user experience, user-derived explanations of some quantitative results, and suggestions for system improvements., Results: The mNCANDA protocol adherence was high (mean response rate 82%, SD 27%) and stable over time across all age groups. The median time to complete each assessment was 51 s (mean response time 1.14, SD 1.03 min). Comparisons between mNCANDA and interview self-reports on recent (previous 30 days) alcohol and cannabis use days demonstrate close agreement (eg, within 1 day of reported use) for most observations. Models used to identify reactivity failed to detect changes in substance use patterns subsequent to enrolling in mNCANDA app assessments (P>.39). Most participants (64/76, 84%) across the age range reported finding the mNCANDA system acceptable. Participants provided recommendations for improving the system (eg, tailoring signaling times)., Conclusions: mNCANDA provides a feasible, multi-year, continuous, fine-grained (eg, weekly) assessment of health behaviors designed to minimize respondent burden and provides acceptable regimes for long-term self-reporting of health behaviors. Fine-grained characterization of variability in behaviors over relatively long periods (eg, up to 18 months) may, through the use of mNCANDA, improve our understanding of the relationship between substance use exposure and neurocognitive development., (©Kevin M Cummins, Ty Brumback, Tammy Chung, Raeanne C Moore, Trevor Henthorn, Sonja Eberson, Alyssa Lopez, Tatev Sarkissyan, Kate B Nooner, Sandra A Brown, Susan F Tapert. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 10.02.2021.)

The novel coronavirus pandemic that emerged in late 2019 (COVID-19) has created challenges not previously experienced in human research. This paper discusses two large-scale NIH-funded multi-site longitudinal studies of adolescents and young adults - the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study - and valuable approaches to learn about adaptive processes for conducting developmentally sensitive research with neuroimaging and neurocognitive testing across consortia during a global pandemic. We focus on challenges experienced during the pandemic and modifications that may guide other projects, such as implementing adapted protocols that protect the safety of participants and research staff, and addressing assessment challenges through the use of strategies such as remote and mobile assessments. Given the pandemic's disproportionate impacts on participants typically underrepresented in research, we describe efforts to retain these individuals. The pandemic provides an opportunity to develop adaptive processes that can facilitate future studies' ability to mobilize effectively and rapidly., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Nooner, Chung, Feldstein Ewing, Brumback, Arwood, Tapert, Brown and Cottler.)

Purpose: This study sought to assess the performance of the Fitbit Charge HR, a consumer-level multi-sensor activity tracker, to measure physical activity and sleep in children., Methods: 59 healthy boys and girls aged 9-11 years old wore a Fitbit Charge HR, and accuracy of physical activity measures were evaluated relative to research-grade measures taken during a combination of 14 standardized laboratory- and field-based assessments of sitting, stationary cycling, treadmill walking or jogging, stair walking, outdoor walking, and agility drills. Accuracy of sleep measures were evaluated relative to polysomnography (PSG) in 26 boys and girls during an at-home unattended PSG overnight recording. The primary analyses included assessment of the agreement (biases) between measures using the Bland-Altman method, and epoch-by-epoch (EBE) analyses on a minute-by-minute basis., Results: Fitbit Charge HR underestimated steps (~11.8 steps per minute), heart rate (~3.58 bpm), and metabolic equivalents (~0.55 METs per minute) and overestimated energy expenditure (~0.34 kcal per minute) relative to research-grade measures (p< 0.05). The device showed an overall accuracy of 84.8% for classifying moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary and light physical activity (SLPA) (sensitivity MVPA: 85.4%; specificity SLPA: 83.1%). Mean estimates of bias for measuring total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, and heart rate during sleep were 14 min, 9 min, and 1.06 bpm, respectively, with 95.8% sensitivity in classifying sleep and 56.3% specificity in classifying wake epochs., Conclusions: Fitbit Charge HR had adequate sensitivity in classifying moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity and sleep, but had limitations in detecting wake, and was more accurate in detecting heart rate during sleep than during exercise, in healthy children. Further research is needed to understand potential challenges and limitations of these consumer devices., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Critical changes in adolescence involve brain cognitive maturation of inhibitory control processes that are essential for a myriad of adult functions. Cognitive control advances into adulthood as there is more flexible integration of component processes, including inhibitory control of conflicting information, overwriting inappropriate response tendencies, and amplifying relevant responses for accurate execution. Using a modified Stroop task with fMRI, we investigated the effects of age, sex, and puberty on brain functional correlates of cognitive and motor control in 87 boys and 91 girls across the adolescent age range. Results revealed dissociable brain systems for cognitive and motor control processes, whereby adolescents flexibly adapted neural responses to control demands. Specifically, when response repetitions facilitated planning-based action selection, frontoparietal-insular regions associated with cognitive control operations were less activated, whereas cortical-pallidal-cerebellar motor regions associated with motor skill acquisition, were more activated. Attenuated middle cingulate cortex activation occurred with older adolescent age for both motor control and cognitive control with automaticity from repetition learning. Sexual dimorphism for control operations occurred in extrastriate cortices involved in visuo-attentional selection: While boys enhanced extrastriate selection processes for motor control, girls activated these regions more for cognitive control. These sex differences were attenuated with more advanced pubertal stage. Together, our findings show that brain cognitive and motor control processes are segregated, demand-specific, more efficient in older adolescents, and differ between sexes relative to pubertal development. Our findings advance our understanding of how distributed brain activity and the neurodevelopment of automaticity enhances cognitive and motor control ability in adolescence.

Purpose of Study: Approximately two thirds of youth report experiencing or witnessing a trauma. It is not known whether trauma or the posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) following trauma increases adolescent drinking risk., Recent Findings: We described trauma experienced by the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) longitudinal sample (N=831) participants and examined drinking over 4 years. We hypothesize that more traumatic events and PTSS will predict transition to moderate/heavy drinking., Summary: 658 no/low drinkers at baseline were followed yearly for 4 years for transition to moderate/heavy drinking using logistic regression models. Youth were grouped by: No Trauma (n=257), Trauma (n= 348), and Trauma with PTSS (n=53). Those with Trauma and PTSS showed escalation to moderate/heavy drinking compared to the No Trauma group in follow-up years 2, 3, and 4. Number of traumatic events did not predict moderate/heavy drinking. Interventions targeting PTSS may prevent transition to moderate/heavy drinking.

Background: The cerebellum is a target of alcoholism-related brain damage in adults, yet no study has prospectively tracked deviations from normal cerebellar growth trajectories in adolescents before and after initiating drinking., Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging tracked developmental volume trajectories of 10 cerebellar lobule and vermis tissue constituents in 548 no/low drinking youths age 12 to 21 years at induction into this 5-site, NCANDA (National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence) study. Over the 3- to 4-year longitudinal examination yielding 2043 magnetic resonance imaging scans, 328 youths remained no/low drinkers, whereas 220 initiated substantial drinking after initial neuroimaging., Results: Normal growth trajectories derived from no/low drinkers indicated that gray matter volumes of lobules V and VI, crus II, lobule VIIB, and lobule X declined faster with age in male youths than in female youths, whereas white matter volumes in crus I and crus II and lobules VIIIA and VIIIB expanded faster in female youths than in male youths; cerebrospinal fluid volume expanded faster in most cerebellar regions of male youths than female youths. Drinkers exhibited accelerated gray matter decline in anterior lobules and vermis, accelerated vermian white matter expansion, and accelerated cerebrospinal fluid volumes expansion of anterior lobules relative to youths who remained no/low drinkers. Analyses including both alcohol and marijuana did not support an independent role for marijuana in alcohol effects on cerebellar gray matter trajectories., Conclusions: Alcohol use-related cerebellar growth trajectory differences from normal involved anterior lobules and vermis of youths who initiated substantial drinking. These regions are commonly affected in alcohol-dependent adults, raising the possibility that cerebellar structures affected by youthful drinking may be vulnerable to age-alcohol interactions in later adulthood., (Copyright © 2019 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Life events experienced during adolescence are associated with risk and resilience to heavy episodic drinking (HED; i.e. binge drinking). The current study builds on prior research using latent class analysis (LCA) to examine heterogeneity in patterns of adolescent life events at baseline to HED over the course of three years (4 timepoints) as part of the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA). Methods: Life event classes were modeled using LCA that characterized NCANDA participants based upon their responses to the Life Events Questionnaire ( N  = 467, age: M  = 14.98, SD  = 1.69, 49.7% female). These baseline latent life event classes were then compared to HED at baseline and years 1, 2 and 3 using multinomial logistic regression. Results: At baseline, the LCA characterized four classes of adolescents based on endorsement of life events: negative-relational conflict ( n  = 65, 13.9%), negative-financial problems ( n  = 49, 10.5%), low life events ( n  = 130, 27.8%), and positive life events ( n  = 223, 47.8%). Life event trajectories differed for the negative life event classes compared to the other two classes, with greater odds of HED in the negative-financial problems class at year 1. Conclusion: The four latent classes derived from the life events of NCANDA youth yielded a characterization of adolescents that could aid in understanding HED over the subsequent three years, suggesting that everyday life events may inform adolescent binge drinking.

The study examined age related changes in the magnitude of the Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) in 8-14 year old children performing a variation of a Go/No-Go task. Participants were presented with four stimuli and tasked with mapping each of them either to a response or to a "no response" by trial and error guided by feedback. Feedback was valid for two stimuli (Go and No-Go) and invalid (.5 positive; .5 negative feedback) for the other two stimuli. The amplitude of the FRN was evaluated as a function of age separately for Go and No-Go trials. The results indicated that while performance on valid Go trials improved with age, accuracy on valid No-Go trials remained stable with age. FRN amplitude was found to be inversely related to age such that smaller FRN amplitudes were observed in older children even after controlling for variance in learning. Additionally, the FRN was found as a predictor of post-learning performance on Go trials but not on No-Go trials, regardless of age. These results do not provide support to the link between the FRN and inhibition control as measured by No-Go performance, but do suggest a link with other executive control abilities called for by the Go condition., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The authors sought evidence for altered adolescent brain growth trajectory associated with moderate and heavy alcohol use in a large national, multisite, prospective study of adolescents before and after initiation of appreciable alcohol use., Method: This study examined 483 adolescents (ages 12-21) before initiation of drinking and 1 and 2 years later. At the 2-year assessment, 356 participants continued to meet the study's no/low alcohol consumption entry criteria, 65 had initiated moderate drinking, and 62 had initiated heavy drinking. MRI was used to quantify regional cortical and white matter volumes. Percent change per year (slopes) in adolescents who continued to meet no/low criteria served as developmental control trajectories against which to compare those who initiated moderate or heavy drinking., Results: In no/low drinkers, gray matter volume declined throughout adolescence and slowed in many regions in later adolescence. Complementing gray matter declines, white matter regions grew at faster rates at younger ages and slowed toward young adulthood. Youths who initiated heavy drinking exhibited an accelerated frontal cortical gray matter trajectory, divergent from the norm. Although significant effects on trajectories were not observed in moderate drinkers, their intermediate position between no/low and heavy drinkers suggests a dose effect. Neither marijuana co-use nor baseline volumes contributed significantly to the alcohol effect., Conclusions: Initiation of drinking during adolescence, with or without marijuana co-use, disordered normal brain growth trajectories. Factors possibly contributing to abnormal cortical volume trajectories include peak consumption in the past year and family history of alcoholism.

Substance use (SU) and sleep problems appear interrelated, but few studies have examined the influence of adolescent sleep patterns on development of SU disorders. This study prospectively examined the influence of sleep habits on subsequent SU in youth who later transitioned into heavy drinking. At time 1 (T1), participants (n = 95) were substance-naive 12- to 14-year-olds. Path-analytic models examined whether the effects of T1 risk factors (familial SU disorder, inhibition control, and externalizing and internalizing traits) on time 3 (M = 19.8 years old) tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis were mediated by time 2 (M = 15.1 years old) sleep chronotype, daytime sleepiness, and erratic sleep/wake behaviors. Significant direct path effects of T1 risk factors and time 2 sleep behaviors on time 3 SU were found, Ps < 0.05. In models that examined the effect of each individual sleep behavior separately on SU, more erratic sleep/wake and greater daytime sleepiness predicted higher lifetime use events for all substances (Ps < 0.01). Higher evening chronotype tendencies predicted lower tobacco and higher alcohol and cannabis lifetime use events (Ps < 0.01). Erratic sleep/wake behaviors mediated the effect of inhibitory control on subsequent SU; less erratic sleep/wake behaviors predicted better inhibition control ( β̂= -0.20, P < 0.05). Early-mid adolescent psychiatric health and sleep behaviors prior to drinking onset predicted greater SU 5 years later. Participants were substance-naïve at baseline, allowing for the examination of temporal order in the relationship between sleep problems and alcohol use. Early adolescent sleep problems may be an important risk factor for SU in later life., (© 2017 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

The transition from adolescent to adult cognition and emotional control requires neurodevelopmental maturation likely involving intrinsic functional networks (IFNs). Normal neurodevelopment may be vulnerable to disruption from environmental insult such as alcohol consumption commonly initiated during adolescence. To test potential disruption to IFN maturation, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) in 581 no-to-low alcohol-consuming and 117 moderate-to-high-drinking youth. Functional seed-to-voxel connectivity analysis assessed age, sex, and moderate alcohol drinking on default-mode, executive-control, salience, reward, and emotion networks and tested cognitive and motor coordination correlates of network connectivity. Among no-to-low alcohol-consuming adolescents, executive-control frontolimbicstriatal connectivity was stronger in older than younger adolescents, particularly boys, and predicted better ability in balance, memory, and impulse control. Connectivity patterns in moderate-to-high-drinking youth were tested mainly in late adolescence when drinking was initiated. Implicated was the emotion network with attenuated connectivity to default-mode network regions. Our cross-sectional rs-fMRI findings from this large cohort of adolescents show sexual dimorphism in connectivity and suggest neurodevelopmental rewiring toward stronger and spatially more distributed executive-control networking in older than younger adolescents. Functional network rewiring in moderate-to-high-drinking adolescents may impede maturation of affective and self-reflection systems and obscure maturation of complex social and emotional behaviors., (© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Purpose: We assessed sex- and age-dependent differences in a cross-sectional analysis of cardiac autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation during sleep in adolescents., Methods: Nocturnal heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) metrics, reflecting ANS functioning, were analyzed across the night and within undisturbed rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep in 149 healthy adolescents (12-22 years; 67 female) from the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence., Results: Nocturnal HR was slower in older, more pubertally advanced boys than in younger boys. In girls, HR did not vary according to age or maturity, although overall HRV and vagal modulation declined with age. Although younger boys and girls had similar HR, the male-female HR difference increased by ~2.4 bpm every year (p < .01, higher in older girls). Boys and girls showed expected increases in total HRV across the night but this within-night "recovery" was blunted in girls compared with boys (p < .05). Also, the non-REM and REM difference in HR was greater in girls (p < .01). Models exploring a role of covariates (sleep, mood, reproductive hormones, activity) in influencing HR and HRV showed few significant effects, apart from sedentary activity (higher in older girls), which partially mediated the sex × age interaction in HR., Conclusions: Sex-related differences in cardiac ANS function emerge during adolescence. The extent to which sex-age divergences in ANS function are adaptive or reflect underlying sex-specific vulnerability for the development of psychopathology and other health conditions in adolescence needs to be determined., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

During adolescence, problems reflecting cognitive, behavioral and affective dysregulation, such as inattention and emotional dyscontrol, have been observed to be associated with substance use disorder (SUD) risks and outcomes. Prior studies have typically been with small samples, and have typically not included comprehensive measurement of executive dysfunction domains. The relationships of executive dysfunction in daily life with performance based testing of cognitive skills and structural brain characteristics, thought to be the basis for executive functioning, have not been definitively determined. The aims of this study were to determine the relationships between executive dysfunction in daily life, measured by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF), cognitive skills and structural brain characteristics, and SUD risks, including a global SUD risk indicator, sleep quality, and risky alcohol and cannabis use. In addition to bivariate relationships, multivariate models were tested. The subjects ( n = 817; ages 12 through 21) were participants in the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) study. The results indicated that executive dysfunction was significantly related to SUD risks, poor sleep quality, risky alcohol use and cannabis use, and was not significantly related to cognitive skills or structural brain characteristics. In multivariate models, the relationship between poor sleep quality and risky substance use was mediated by executive dysfunction. While these cross-sectional relationships need to be further examined in longitudinal analyses, the results suggest that poor sleep quality and executive dysfunction may be viable preventive intervention targets to reduce adolescent substance use.

Introduction: Adolescence and young adulthood are periods of continued biological and psychosocial maturation. Thus, there may be deleterious effects of consuming large quantities of alcohol on neural development and associated cognition during this time. The purpose of this mini review is to highlight neuroimaging research that has specifically examined the effects of binge and heavy drinking on adolescent and young adult brain structure and function. Methods: We review cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of young binge and heavy drinkers that have examined brain structure (e.g., gray and white matter volume, cortical thickness, white matter microstructure) and investigated brain response using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Results: Binge and heavy-drinking adolescents and young adults have systematically thinner and lower volume in prefrontal cortex and cerebellar regions, and attenuated white matter development. They also show elevated brain activity in fronto-parietal regions during working memory, verbal learning, and inhibitory control tasks. In response to alcohol cues, relative to controls or light-drinking individuals, binge and heavy drinkers show increased neural response mainly in mesocorticolimbic regions, including the striatum, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), hippocampus, and amygdala. Mixed findings are present in risky decision-making tasks, which could be due to large variation in task design and analysis. Conclusions: These findings suggest altered neural structure and activity in binge and heavy-drinking youth may be related to the neurotoxic effects of consuming alcohol in large quantities during a highly plastic neurodevelopmental period, which could result in neural reorganization, and increased risk for developing an alcohol use disorder (AUD).

Background: The theory of behavioral tolerance to alcohol posits that greater experience with drinking to intoxication leads to less impaired cognitive and psychomotor performance. However, the degree to which behavioral tolerance develops or changes over time in adults due to repeated heavy alcohol drinking has not been clearly demonstrated., Method: We examined data from the first 6 years of the Chicago Social Drinking Project to test whether chronic heavy drinkers (HDs; n = 86) and light drinkers (LDs; n = 69) exhibit behavioral tolerance or changes in perceived impairment at two testing phases in early adulthood. Tasks were the Grooved Pegboard and Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) given at initial testing and then repeated in a re-examination phase 5 years later. Alcohol (0.8 g/kg) and placebo were administered at separate sessions in each phase for a total of 620 individual laboratory sessions., Results: HDs exhibited less impairment over time on the Pegboard task but not on the DSST, while LDs did not exhibit behavioral tolerance on either task. HDs reported persistently lower perceived impairment compared to LDs., Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that behavioral tolerance in HDs is evident over time on rote fine motor skills (Pegboard) but not more complex skills integrating motor speed, encoding, and short-term memory (DSST). The results have implications for our understanding of alcohol-induced impairments across neurobehavioral processes in heavy drinkers and their ongoing risks for alcohol-related consequences over time.

Longitudinal study provides a robust method for tracking developmental trajectories. Yet inherent problems of retesting pose challenges in distinguishing biological developmental change from prior testing experience. We examined factors potentially influencing change scores on 16 neuropsychological test composites over 1year in 568 adolescents in the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) project. The twice-minus-once-tested method revealed that performance gain was mainly attributable to testing experience (practice) with little contribution from predicted developmental effects. Group mean practice slopes for 13 composites indicated that 60% to ∼100% variance was attributable to test experience; General Ability accuracy showed the least practice effect (29%). Lower baseline performance, especially in younger participants, was a strong predictor of greater gain. Contributions from age, sex, ethnicity, examination site, socioeconomic status, or family history of alcohol/substance abuse were nil to small, even where statistically significant. Recognizing that a substantial proportion of change in longitudinal testing, even over 1-year, is attributable to testing experience indicates caution against assuming that performance gain observed during periods of maturation necessarily reflects development. Estimates of testing experience, a form of learning, may be a relevant metric for detecting interim influences, such as alcohol use or traumatic episodes, on behavior., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Underage drinking is widely recognized as a leading public health and social problem for adolescents in the United States. Being able to identify at-risk adolescents before they initiate heavy alcohol use could have important clinical and public health implications; however, few investigations have explored individual-level precursors of adolescent substance use. This prospective investigation used machine learning with demographic, neurocognitive, and neuroimaging data in substance-naive adolescents to identify predictors of alcohol use initiation by age 18., Method: Participants (N=137) were healthy substance-naive adolescents (ages 12-14) who underwent neuropsychological testing and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI and fMRI), and then were followed annually. By age 18, 70 youths (51%) initiated moderate to heavy alcohol use, and 67 remained nonusers. Random forest classification models identified the most important predictors of alcohol use from a large set of demographic, neuropsychological, sMRI, and fMRI variables., Results: Random forest models identified 34 predictors contributing to alcohol use by age 18, including several demographic and behavioral factors (being male, higher socioeconomic status, early dating, more externalizing behaviors, positive alcohol expectancies), worse executive functioning, and thinner cortices and less brain activation in diffusely distributed regions of the brain., Conclusions: Incorporating a mix of demographic, behavioral, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging data may be the best strategy for identifying youths at risk for initiating alcohol use during adolescence. The identified risk factors will be useful for alcohol prevention efforts and in research to address brain mechanisms that may contribute to early drinking.

Adolescence is a period marked by increases in risk taking, sensation seeking, and emotion dysregulation. Neurobiological models of adolescent development propose that lagging development in brain regions associated with affect and behavior control compared to regions associated with reward and emotion processing may underlie these behavioral manifestations. Cross-sectional studies have identified several functional brain networks that may contribute to risk for substance use and psychopathology in adolescents. Determining brain structure measures that prospectively predict substance use and psychopathology could refine our understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to these problems, and lead to improved prevention efforts. Participants (N = 265) were healthy substance-naïve adolescents (ages 12-14) who underwent magnetic resonance imaging and then were followed annually for up to 13 years. Cortical thickness and surface area measures for three prefrontal regions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and orbitofrontal cortex) and three cortical regions from identified functional networks (anterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex, and parietal cortex) were used to predict subsequent binge drinking, externalizing symptoms, and internalizing symptoms. Thinner dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal cortex in early adolescence predicted more binge drinking and externalizing symptoms, respectively, in late adolescence (ps < .05). Having a family history of alcohol use disorder predicted more subsequent binge drinking and externalizing symptoms. Thinner parietal cortex, but not family history, predicted more subsequent internalizing symptoms (p < .05). This study emphasizes the temporal association between maturation of the salience, inhibition, and executive control networks in early adolescence and late adolescent behavior outcomes. Our findings indicate that developmental variations in these brain regions predate behavioral outcomes of substance use and psychopathology, and may therefore serve as prospective biomarkers of vulnerability.

Cortical thickness abnormalities have been identified in youth using both alcohol and marijuana. However, limited studies have followed individuals pre- and post initiation of alcohol and marijuana use to help identify to what extent discrepancies in structural brain integrity are pre-existing or substance-related. Adolescents (N=69) were followed from ages 13 (pre-initiation of substance use, baseline) to ages 19 (post-initiation, follow-up). Three subgroups were identified, participants that initiated alcohol use (ALC, n=23, >20 alcohol use episodes), those that initiated both alcohol and marijuana use (ALC+MJ, n=23, >50 marijuana use episodes) and individuals that did not initiate either substance regularly by follow-up (CON, n=23, <3 alcohol use episodes, no marijuana use episodes). All adolescents underwent neurocognitive testing, neuroimaging, and substance use and mental health interviews. Significant group by time interactions and main effects on cortical thickness estimates were identified for 18 cortical regions spanning the left and right hemisphere (ps<0.05). The vast majority of findings suggest a more substantial decrease, or within-subjects effect, in cortical thickness by follow-up for individuals who have not initiated regular substance use or alcohol use only by age 19; modest between-group differences were identified at baseline in several cortical regions (ALC and CON>ALC+MJ). Minimal neurocognitive differences were observed in this sample. Findings suggest pre-existing neural differences prior to marijuana use may contribute to initiation of use and observed neural outcomes. Marijuana use may also interfere with thinning trajectories that contribute to morphological differences in young adulthood that are often observed in cross-sectional studies of heavy marijuana users., (Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Brain structural development continues throughout adolescence, when experimentation with alcohol is often initiated. To parse contributions from biological and environmental factors on neurodevelopment, this study used baseline National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, acquired in 674 adolescents meeting no/low alcohol or drug use criteria and 134 adolescents exceeding criteria. Spatial integrity of images across the 5 recruitment sites was assured by morphological scaling using Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative phantom-derived volume scalar metrics. Clinical MRI readings identified structural anomalies in 11.4%. Cortical volume and thickness were smaller and white matter volumes were larger in older than in younger adolescents. Effects of sex (male > female) and ethnicity (majority > minority) were significant for volume and surface but minimal for cortical thickness. Adjusting volume and area for supratentorial volume attenuated or removed sex and ethnicity effects. That cortical thickness showed age-related decline and was unrelated to supratentorial volume is consistent with the radial unit hypothesis, suggesting a universal neural development characteristic robust to sex and ethnicity. Comparison of NCANDA with PING data revealed similar but flatter, age-related declines in cortical volumes and thickness. Smaller, thinner frontal, and temporal cortices in the exceeds-criteria than no/low-drinking group suggested untoward effects of excessive alcohol consumption on brain structural development., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Cortical thickness abnormalities have been identified in youth using both alcohol and marijuana. However, limited studies have followed individuals pre- and post initiation of alcohol and marijuana use to help identify to what extent discrepancies in structural brain integrity are pre-existing or substance-related. Adolescents (N=69) were followed from ages 13 (pre-initiation of substance use, baseline) to ages 19 (post-initiation, follow-up). Three subgroups were identified, participants that initiated alcohol use (ALC, n=23, >20 alcohol use episodes), those that initiated both alcohol and marijuana use (ALC+MJ, n=23, >50 marijuana use episodes) and individuals that did not initiate either substance regularly by follow-up (CON, n=23, <3 alcohol use episodes, no marijuana use episodes). All adolescents underwent neurocognitive testing, neuroimaging, and substance use and mental health interviews. Significant group by time interactions and main effects on cortical thickness estimates were identified for 18 cortical regions spanning the left and right hemisphere (ps<0.05). The vast majority of findings suggest a more substantial decrease, or within-subjects effect, in cortical thickness by follow-up for individuals who have not initiated regular substance use or alcohol use only by age 19; modest between-group differences were identified at baseline in several cortical regions (ALC and CON>ALC+MJ). Minimal neurocognitive differences were observed in this sample. Findings suggest pre-existing neural differences prior to marijuana use may contribute to initiation of use and observed neural outcomes. Marijuana use may also interfere with thinning trajectories that contribute to morphological differences in young adulthood that are often observed in cross-sectional studies of heavy marijuana users., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To investigate development of cognitive and motor functions in healthy adolescents and to explore whether hazardous drinking affects the normal developmental course of those functions., Method: Participants were 831 adolescents recruited across 5 United States sites of the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence 692 met criteria for no/low alcohol exposure, and 139 exceeded drinking thresholds. Cross-sectional, baseline data were collected with computerized and traditional neuropsychological tests assessing 8 functional domains expressed as composite scores. General additive modeling evaluated factors potentially modulating performance (age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and pubertal developmental stage)., Results: Older no/low-drinking participants achieved better scores than younger ones on 5 accuracy composites (general ability, abstraction, attention, emotion, and balance). Speeded responses for attention, motor speed, and general ability were sensitive to age and pubertal development. The exceeds-threshold group (accounting for age, sex, and other demographic factors) performed significantly below the no/low-drinking group on balance accuracy and on general ability, attention, episodic memory, emotion, and motor speed scores and showed evidence for faster speed at the expense of accuracy. Delay Discounting performance was consistent with poor impulse control in the younger no/low drinkers and in exceeds-threshold drinkers regardless of age., Conclusions: Higher achievement with older age and pubertal stage in general ability, abstraction, attention, emotion, and balance suggests continued functional development through adolescence, possibly supported by concurrently maturing frontal, limbic, and cerebellar brain systems. Determination of whether low scores by the exceeds-threshold group resulted from drinking or from other preexisting factors requires longitudinal study. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

Neurodevelopment continues through adolescence, with notable maturation of white matter tracts comprising regional fiber systems progressing at different rates. To identify factors that could contribute to regional differences in white matter microstructure development, large samples of youth spanning adolescence to young adulthood are essential to parse these factors. Recruitment of adequate samples generally relies on multi-site consortia but comes with the challenge of merging data acquired on different platforms. In the current study, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data were acquired on GE and Siemens systems through the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA), a multi-site study designed to track the trajectories of regional brain development during a time of high risk for initiating alcohol consumption. This cross-sectional analysis reports baseline Tract-Based Spatial Statistic (TBSS) of regional fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (L1), and radial diffusivity (LT) from the five consortium sites on 671 adolescents who met no/low alcohol or drug consumption criteria and 132 adolescents with a history of exceeding consumption criteria. Harmonization of DTI metrics across manufacturers entailed the use of human-phantom data, acquired multiple times on each of three non-NCANDA participants at each site's MR system, to determine a manufacturer-specific correction factor. Application of the correction factor derived from human phantom data measured on MR systems from different manufacturers reduced the standard deviation of the DTI metrics for FA by almost a half, enabling harmonization of data that would have otherwise carried systematic error. Permutation testing supported the hypothesis of higher FA and lower diffusivity measures in older adolescents and indicated that, overall, the FA, MD, and L1 of the boys were higher than those of the girls, suggesting continued microstructural development notable in the boys. The contribution of demographic and clinical differences to DTI metrics was assessed with General Additive Models (GAM) testing for age, sex, and ethnicity differences in regional skeleton mean values. The results supported the primary study hypothesis that FA skeleton mean values in the no/low-drinking group were highest at different ages. When differences in intracranial volume were covaried, FA skeleton mean reached a maximum at younger ages in girls than boys and varied in magnitude with ethnicity. Our results, however, did not support the hypothesis that youth who exceeded exposure criteria would have lower FA or higher diffusivity measures than the no/low-drinking group; detecting the effects of excessive alcohol consumption during adolescence on DTI metrics may require longitudinal study., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Studies suggest marijuana impacts gray and white matter neural tissue development, however few prospective studies have determined the relationship between cortical thickness and cannabis use spanning adolescence to young adulthood. This study aimed to understand how heavy marijuana use influences cortical thickness trajectories across adolescence. Subjects were adolescents with heavy marijuana use and concomitant alcohol use (MJ+ALC, n=30) and controls (CON, n=38) with limited substance use histories. Participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging and comprehensive substance use assessment at three independent time points. Repeated measures analysis of covariance was used to look at main effects of group, time, and Group × Time interactions on cortical thickness. MJ+ALC showed thicker cortical estimates across the brain (23 regions), particularly in frontal and parietal lobes (ps<.05). More cumulative marijuana use was associated with increased thickness estimates by 3-year follow-up (ps<.05). Heavy marijuana use during adolescence and into young adulthood may be associated with altered neural tissue development and interference with neuromaturation that can have neurobehavioral consequences. Continued follow-up of adolescent marijuana users will help understand ongoing neural changes that are associated with development of problematic use into adulthood, as well as potential for neural recovery with cessation of use., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Objective: During adolescence, neurobiological maturation occurs concurrently with social and interpersonal changes, including the initiation of alcohol and other substance use. The National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) is designed to disentangle the complex relationships between onset, escalation, and desistance of alcohol use and changes in neurocognitive functioning and neuromaturation., Method: A sample of 831 youth, ages 12-21 years, was recruited at five sites across the United States, oversampling those at risk for alcohol use problems. Most (83%) had limited or no history of alcohol or other drug use, and a smaller portion (17%) exceeded drinking thresholds. A comprehensive assessment of biological development, family background, psychiatric symptomatology, and neuropsychological functioning-in addition to anatomical, diffusion, and functional brain magnetic resonance imaging-was completed at baseline., Results: The NCANDA sample of youth is nationally representative of sex and racial/ethnic groups. More than 50% have at least one risk characteristic for subsequent heavy drinking (e.g., family history, internalizing or externalizing symptoms). As expected, those who exceeded drinking thresholds (n = 139) differ from those who did not (n = 692) on identified factors associated with early alcohol use and problems., Conclusions: NCANDA successfully recruited a large sample of adolescents and comprehensively assessed psychosocial functioning across multiple domains. Based on the sample's risk profile, NCANDA is well positioned to capture the transition into drinking and alcohol problems in a large portion of the cohort, as well as to help disentangle the associations between alcohol use, neurobiological maturation, and neurocognitive development and functioning.

Objective: The effect of adolescent marijuana use on brain development remains unclear despite relaxing legal restrictions, decreased perceived harm, and increasing use rates among youth. The aim of this 3-year prospective study was to evaluate the long-term neurocognitive effects of adolescent marijuana use., Method: Adolescent marijuana users with concomitant alcohol use (MJ + ALC, n = 49) and control teens with limited substance use histories (CON, n = 59) were given neuropsychological and substance use assessments at project baseline, when they were ages 16-19. They were then reassessed 18 and 36 months later. Changes in neuropsychological measures were evaluated with repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), controlling for lifetime alcohol use, and examined the effects of group, time, and group by time interactions on cognitive functioning., Results: MJ + ALC users performed significantly worse than controls, across time points, in the domains of complex attention, memory, processing speed, and visuospatial functioning (ps <.05). Earlier age of marijuana use onset was associated with poorer processing speed and executive functioning by the 3-year follow-up (ps ≤.02)., Conclusions: Frequent marijuana use throughout adolescence and into young adulthood appeared linked to worsened cognitive performance. Earlier age of onset appears to be associated with poorer neurocognitive outcomes that emerge by young adulthood, providing further support for the notion that the brain may be uniquely sensitive to frequent marijuana exposure during the adolescent phase of neurodevelopment. Continued follow-up of adolescent marijuana users will determine the extent of neural recovery that may occur if use abates., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

Objective: Adolescence is a period of neuromaturation concomitant with increased substance involvement. Most substance use studies of adolescents have focused on categorical classifications (e.g., dependent vs. nondependent), but little is known about the influence of specific substance use behaviors on cognitive functioning in youth., Method: This study prospectively evaluated the quantitative effects of different substance use behaviors on neuropsychological functioning. A cognitive test battery was administered at baseline (ages 12-14 years), before substance use initiation, and at follow-up (M = 4.0 years, SD = 2.0) to evaluate changes in verbal memory, visuospatial ability, psychomotor speed, processing speed, and working memory. Robust regressions examined substance use behaviors as predictors of neuropsychological functioning (N = 234)., Results: Several substance use behaviors predicted follow-up neuropsychological functioning above and beyond effects of baseline performance on the same measure (ps < .05). Specifically, more alcohol use days predicted worse verbal memory (β = -.15) and visuospatial ability (β = -.19). More postdrinking effects (β = -.15) and greater drug use (β = -.11) predicted worse psychomotor speed. Processing speed was not predicted by substance involvement (ps > .05). Unexpectedly, more alcohol use predicted better working memory performance (β = .12)., Conclusions: The frequency and intensity of adolescent alcohol use may be more intricately linked to neuropsychological outcomes than previously considered. The low prevalence of substance use disorder in the sample suggests that subdiagnostic users may still experience adverse effects to verbal memory, visuospatial functioning, and psychomotor speed after initiating intense or frequent alcohol use.

Introduction: Heavy drinking during adolescence is associated with increased reactivity to alcohol related stimuli and to differential neural development. Alcohol cue reactivity has been widely studied among adults with alcohol use disorders, but little is known about the neural substrates of cue reactivity in adolescent drinkers. The current study aimed to identify changes in blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal during a cue reactivity task pre- and post-monitored abstinence from alcohol., Method: Demographically matched adolescents (16.0-18.9 years, 54% female) with histories of heavy episodic drinking (HD; n=22) and light or non-drinking control teens (CON; n=16) were recruited to participate in a month-long study. All participants completed a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan with an alcohol cue reactivity task and substance use assessments at baseline and after 28 days of monitored abstinence from alcohol and drugs (i.e., urine toxicology testing every 48-72 h). Repeated-measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) examined main effects of group, time, and group×time interactions on BOLD signal response in regions of interest defined by functional differences at baseline., Results: The HD group exhibited greater (p<.01) BOLD activation than CON to alcohol cues relative to neutral cues in all regions of interest (ROIs; bilateral striatum/globus pallidus, left anterior cingulate, bilateral cerebellum, and parahippocampal gyrus extending to the thalamus/substantia nigra) across time points. Group×time effects showed that HD exhibited greater BOLD activation to alcohol cues than CON at baseline in left anterior cingulate cortex and in the right cerebellar region, but these decreased to non-significance after one month of monitored abstinence., Conclusions: In all ROIs examined, HD exhibited greater BOLD response than CON to alcohol relative to neutral beverage picture cues at baseline, indicating heightened cue reactivity to alcohol cues in heavy drinking adolescents prior to the onset of any alcohol use diagnosis. Across the majority of these brain regions, differences in BOLD response were no longer apparent following a month of abstinence, suggesting a decrease in alcohol cue reactivity among adolescent non-dependent heavy drinkers as a consequence of abstaining from alcohol. These results highlight the malleability of adolescent brain function despite no formal intervention targeting cue reactivity. Increased understanding of the neural underpinnings of cue reactivity could have implications for prevention and intervention strategies in adolescent heavy alcohol users., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Having a positive family history of alcohol use disorders (FHP), as well as aberrant reward circuitry, has been implicated in the initiation of substance use during adolescence. This study explored the relationship between FHP status and reward circuitry in substance naïve youth to better understand future risky behaviors., Methods: Participants were 49 FHP and 45 demographically matched family history negative (FHN) substance-naïve 12-14 year-olds (54 % female). Subjects underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging, including diffusion tensor imaging. Nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex volumes were derived using FreeSurfer, and FSL probabilistic tractography probed structural connectivity and differences in white matter diffusivity estimates (e.g. fractional anisotropy, and mean, radial, and axial diffusivity) between fiber tracts connecting these regions., Result: FHP and FHN youth did not differ on nucleus accumbens or orbitofrontal cortex volumes, white matter tract volumes, or percentages of streamlines (a proxy for fiber tract count) connecting these regions. However, within white matter tracts connecting the nucleus accumbens to the orbitofrontal cortex, FHP youth had significantly lower mean and radial diffusivity (ps < 0.03) than FHN youth., Discussion: While white matter macrostructure between salience and reward regions did not differ between FHP and FHN youth, FHP youth showed greater white matter coherence within these tracts than FHN youth. Aberrant connectivity between reward regions in FHP youth could be linked to an increased risk for substance use initiation.

We examined the degree to which ERP components elicited by items that are isolated from their context, either by their font size ("size isolates") or by their frequency of usage, are correlated with subsequent immediate recall. Study lists contained (a) 15 words including a size isolate, (b) 14 high frequency (HF) words with one low frequency word ("LF isolate"), or (c) 14 LF words with one HF word. We used spatiotemporal PCA to quantify ERP components. We replicated previously reported P300 subsequent memory effects for size isolates and found additional correlations with recall in the novelty P3, a right lateralized positivity, and a left lateralized slow wave that was distinct from the slow wave correlated with recall for nonisolates. LF isolates also showed evidence of a P300 subsequent memory effect and also elicited the left lateralized subsequent memory effect, supporting a role of distinctiveness in word frequency effects in recall., (Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Entry into adolescence is marked by dramatic changes resulting from a dynamic interplay among biological and psychosocial processes. Despite the complexity, development is often indexed only by age in event-related potential (ERP) studies. To broaden this approach, we address the effects of gender and pubertal development, along with age, in adolescents using a psychophysiological probe of decision making, the P300 component. Overall, girls exhibited shorter P300 latencies and smaller P300 amplitudes compared to boys, suggesting more efficient information processing. In both genders, P300 latency and amplitude also diminished as age and pubertal status increased, again suggesting increasing efficiency of information processing with development. Our findings highlight the necessity of considering more than age when examining cognitive functioning in adolescents and, in particular, the necessity of considering gender whenever developmental issues are addressed., (Copyright © 2012 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Alcohol intoxication often results in negative consequences; however, specific behavioral and subjective effects vary as a function of individual differences. The present study utilized an alcohol challenge paradigm to examine whether heavy binge social drinkers (HD; n=77), compared to light social drinkers (LD; n=55), exhibit: (1) greater tolerance in psychomotor task performance under the influence of alcohol, and (2) differential perceptions of the impairing effects of alcohol. The study included three test sessions in which participants consumed either a low (0.4 g/kg) or a high (0.8 g/kg) dose of ethanol or a placebo beverage administered in random order and counterbalanced within group. Participants completed the Digit-Symbol Substitution Task (DSST) and the Grooved Pegboard at pre-drink baseline and at multiple time points after beverage consumption. They also completed a scale of perceived impairment at several intervals after beverage consumption. Ethanol impaired performance at the high dose, but not at the low dose (ps<.001). The groups exhibited similar alcohol-induced impairment. However, HD reported lower self-perceived impairment compared to LD, particularly during the early portion of the blood alcohol curve when actual impairment was most pronounced (p<.001). Thus, this study extends prior research in that habitual binge social drinking does not appear to be associated with tolerance to alcohol's impairing effects on select psychomotor skills. Further, results may have implications for alcohol-related harm as binge social drinkers regularly consume intoxicating doses of alcohol but may not be aware of the physical and cognitive impairments produced by alcohol.