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Sleep is an important contributor for neural maturation and emotion regulation during adolescence, with long-term effects on a range of white matter tracts implicated in affective processing in at-risk populations. We investigated the effects of adolescent sleep patterns on longitudinal changes in white matter development and whether this is related to the emergence of emotional (internalizing) problems. Sleep patterns and internalizing problems were assessed using self-report questionnaires in adolescents recruited in the general population followed up from age 14-19 years (N = 111 White matter structure was measured using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and estimated using fractional anisotropy (FA). We found that longitudinal increases in time in bed (TIB) on weekends and increases in TIB-variability between weekdays to weekend, were associated with an increase in FA in various interhemispheric and cortico-striatal tracts. Extracted FA values from left superior longitudinal fasciculus mediated the relationship between increases in TIB on weekends and a decrease in internalizing problems. These results imply that while insufficient sleep might have potentially harmful effects on long-term white matter development and internalizing problems, longer sleep duration on weekends (catch-up sleep) might be a natural counteractive and protective strategy., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Dr Banaschewski served in an advisory or consultancy role for ADHS digital, Infectopharm, Lundbeck, Medice, Neurim Pharmaceuticals, Oberberg GmbH, Roche, and Takeda. He received conference support or speaker’s fee by Medice and Takeda. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. He received royalties from Hogrefe, Kohlhammer, CIP Medien, Oxford University Press. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Gowland has received a research grant from Lyndra and an honorarium paid to her employer from GlaxoSmithKline. The present work is unrelated to the above grants and relationships. Competing Interests Dr Banaschewski served in an advisory or consultancy role for ADHS digital, Infectopharm, Lundbeck, Medice, Neurim Pharmaceuticals, Oberberg GmbH, Roche, and Takeda. He received conference support or speaker’s fee by Medice and Takeda. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. He received royalties from Hogrefe, Kohlhammer, CIP Medien, Oxford University Press. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Gowland has received a research grant from Lyndra and an honorarium paid to her employer from GlaxoSmithKline. The present work is unrelated to the above grants and relationships., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)