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During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have experienced unprecedented financial and social disruptions. We studied the impact of preexisting psychosocial factors and pandemic-related financial and social disruptions in relation to family well-being among N = 4091 adolescents and parents during early summer 2020, participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development

Purpose Evaluate changes in early adolescent substance use during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic using a prospective, longitudinal, nationwide cohort. Methods Participants were enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. A total of 7,842 youth (mean age = 12.4 years, range = 10.5–14.6) at 21 study sites across the U.S. completed a three-wave assessment of substance use between May and August 2020. Youth reported whether they had used alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, or other substances in the past 30 days. Data were linked to prepandemic surveys that the same youth had completed in the years 2018–2020, before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Past-30-day substance use remained stable in the 6 months since stay-at-home orders were first issued in U.S. states/counties; was primarily episodic (1–2 days in the past month); and was typically limited to a single substance. Using pretest/posttest and age-period designs, we found that compared to before the pandemic, fewer youth were using alcohol and more youth were using nicotine or misusing prescription drugs. During the pandemic, youth were more likely to use substances when they were more stressed by pandemic-related uncertainty; their family experienced material hardship; their parents used alcohol or drugs; or they experienced greater depression or anxiety. Neither engagement in social distancing nor worry about COVID-19 infection was associated with substance use. Several risk factors were stronger among older (vs. younger) adolescents. Conclusions Among youth in early adolescence, advent of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with decreased use of alcohol and increased use of nicotine and misuse of prescription drugs.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study® is a 10-year longitudinal study of children recruited at ages 9 and 10. A battery of neuroimaging tasks are administered biennially to track neurodevelopment and identify individual differences in brain function. This study reports activation patterns from functional MRI (fMRI) tasks completed at baseline, which were designed to measure cognitive impulse control with a stop signal task (SST; N = 5,547), reward anticipation and receipt with a monetary incentive delay (MID) task (N = 6,657) and working memory and emotion reactivity with an emotional N-back (EN-back) task (N = 6,009). Further, we report the spatial reproducibility of activation patterns by assessing between-group vertex/voxelwise correlations of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activation. Analyses reveal robust brain activations that are consistent with the published literature, vary across fMRI tasks/contrasts and slightly correlate with individual behavioral performance on the tasks. These results establish the preadolescent brain function baseline, guide interpretation of cross-sectional analyses and will enable the investigation of longitudinal changes during adolescent development. This paper reports activation patterns for fMRI tasks assessing response inhibition, working memory and reward processing obtained at baseline in the longitudinal ABCD Study, providing a reference for research into adolescent brain development.

Purpose Adolescence is characterized by dramatic physical, social, and emotional changes, making teens particularly vulnerable to the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This longitudinal study identifies young adolescents who are most vulnerable to the psychological toll of the pandemic and provides insights to inform strategies to help adolescents cope better in times of crisis. Methods A data-driven approach was applied to a longitudinal, demographically diverse cohort of more than 3,000 young adolescents (10–14 years) participating in the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study in the United States, including multiple prepandemic visits and three assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic (May–August 2020). We fitted machine learning models and provided a comprehensive list of predictors of psychological distress in individuals. Results Positive affect, stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms were accurately detected with our classifiers. Female sex and prepandemic internalizing symptoms and sleep problems were strong predictors of psychological distress. Parent- and youth-reported pandemic-related psychosocial factors, including poorer quality and functioning of family relationships, more screen time, and witnessing discrimination in relation to the pandemic further predicted youth distress. However, better social support, regular physical activities, coping strategies, and healthy behaviors predicted better emotional well-being. Conclusions Findings highlight the importance of social connectedness and healthy behaviors, such as sleep and physical activity, as buffering factors against the deleterious effects of the pandemic on adolescents' mental health. They also point to the need for greater attention toward coping strategies that help the most vulnerable adolescents, particularly girls and those with prepandemic psychological problems.

Our study characterized associations between three indicators of COVID-19's community-level impact in 20 geographically diverse metropolitan regions and how worried youth and their caregivers in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ Study have been about COVID-19. County-level COVID-19 case/death rates and monthly unemployment rates were geocoded to participants' addresses. Caregivers' (vs. youths') COVID-19-related worry was more strongly associated with COVID-19's community impact, independent of sociodemographics and pre-pandemic anxiety levels, with these associations varying by location. Public-health agencies and healthcare providers should avoid adopting uniform "one-size-fits-all" approaches to addressing COVID-19-related emotional distress and must consider specific communities' needs, challenges, and strengths.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD)

Adolescence is a time of dramatic changes in brain structure and function, and the adolescent brain is highly susceptible to being altered by experiences like substance use. However, there is much we have yet to learn about how these experiences influence brain development, how they promote or interfere with later health outcomes, or even what healthy brain development looks like. A large longitudinal study beginning in early adolescence could help us understand the normal variability in adolescent brain and cognitive development and tease apart the many factors that influence it. Recent advances in neuroimaging, informatics, and genetics technologies have made it feasible to conduct a study of sufficient size and scope to answer many outstanding questions. At the same time, several Institutes across the NIH recognized the value of collaborating in such a project because of its ability to address the role of biological, environmental, and behavioral factors like gender, pubertal hormones, sports participation, and social/economic disparities on brain development as well as their association with the emergence and progression of substance use and mental illness including suicide risk. Thus, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study was created to answer the most pressing public health questions of our day. Keywords: Adolescent, Brain development, Neuroimaging, Longitudinal, Substance use, Mental health

Our brain is constantly shaped by our immediate environments, and while some effects are transient, some have long-term consequences. Therefore, it is critical to identify which environmental risks have evident and long-term impact on brain development. To expand our understanding of the environmental context of each child, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study® incorporates the use of geospatial location data to capture a range of individual, neighborhood, and state level data based on the child’s residential location in order to elucidate the physical environmental contexts in which today’s youth are growing up. We review the major considerations and types of geocoded information incorporated by the Linked External Data Environmental (LED) workgroup to expand on the built and natural environmental constructs in the existing and future ABCD Study data releases. Understanding the environmental context of each youth furthers the consortium’s mission to understand factors that may influence individual differences in brain development, providing the opportunity to inform public policy and health organization guidelines for child and adolescent health., Highlights • ABCD Study® includes a Linked External Data (LED) Environmental working group. • Residential geocodes linked to physical environmental contextual variables. • External data sources include residential, census, and state-level variables. • These data may allow for important gene-by-environment effects to be examined.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is an ongoing, nationwide study of the effects of environmental influences on behavioral and brain development in adolescents. The ABCD Study is a collaborative effort, including a Coordinating Center, 21 data acquisition sites across the United States, and a Data Analysis and Informatics Center (DAIC). The main objective of the study is to recruit and assess over eleven thousand 9-10-year-olds and follow them over the course of 10 years to characterize normative brain and cognitive development, the many factors that influence brain development, and the effects of those factors on mental health and other outcomes. The study employs state-of-the-art multimodal brain imaging, cognitive and clinical assessments, bioassays, and careful assessment of substance use, environment, psychopathological symptoms, and social functioning. The data will provide a resource of unprecedented scale and depth for studying typical and atypical development. Here, we describe the baseline neuroimaging processing and subject-level analysis methods used by the ABCD DAIC in the centralized processing and extraction of neuroanatomical and functional imaging phenotypes. Neuroimaging processing and analyses include modality-specific corrections for distortions and motion, brain segmentation and cortical surface reconstruction derived from structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), analysis of brain microstructure using diffusion MRI (dMRI), task-related analysis of functional MRI (fMRI), and functional connectivity analysis of resting-state fMRI.HighlightsAn overview of the MRI processing pipeline for the ABCD StudyA discussion on the challenges of large, multisite population studiesA methodological reference for users of publicly shared data from the ABCD Study

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a large, longitudinal study of brain development and child health, is uniquely positioned to explore relationships among stress, neurodevelopment, and psychiatric symptomatology, including substance use and addiction. There is much we do not know about how adverse experiences affect the developing brain and cognitive, social, emotional, and academic outcomes. The data collected by the ABCD Study will allow the examination of the relationships among these variables in adolescence, including the effects of stressors (e.g., abuse, neglect, household challenges, parental substance use) on psychological adjustment and other stress responses. A comprehensive protocol that includes physical and mental health, substance use, culture and environment, neurocognitive assessments, biospecimen analyses, and structural and functional neuroimaging will provide opportunities for learning about the impacts of stressors on health and other outcomes in the context of adolescent development. This knowledge could lead to the development of interventions that reduce or even reverse the impacts of stressors. Keywords: Adolescent, Development, Stress

Retention efforts are critical to maintain relationships with research participants over time. This is especially important for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, where families are asked to stay engaged with the study throughout the course of 10 years. This high-degree of involvement is essential to longitudinally track child and adolescent development. At a minimum, we will connect with families every 6 months by telephone, and every year in person, with closer contact with the youth directly as they transition into adolescence. Differential retention, when related to non-random issues pertaining to demographic or risk features, can negatively impact the generalizability of study outcomes. Thus, to ensure high rates of retention for all participants, the ABCD study employs a number of efforts to support youth and families. This overview details the framework and concrete steps for retention. Keywords: ABCD study, Adolescents, Retention, Longitudinal, Multi-site

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a large, longitudinal study of brain development and child health, relies on the engagement of communities, educators, and families to ensure its success. To that end, community and partner relationships, development of targeted messages and materials for specific audiences (educators, families, youth, scientists), and continued and consistent outreach must be an integral part of the Consortium activities. The ABCD Consortium has made these efforts a priority and developed a framework to raise awareness about the study and promote sustained broad-base support from diverse stakeholders. Keywords: Adolescent, Development, Communication, Outreach, Engagement

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study is designed to be the largest study of brain development and child health in the United States, performing comprehensive assessments of 11,500 children repeatedly for 10 years. An endeavor of this magnitude requires an organized framework of governance and communication that promotes collaborative decision-making and dissemination of information. The ABCD consortium structure, built upon the Matrix Management approach of organizational theory, facilitates the integration of input from all institutions, numerous internal workgroups and committees, federal partners, and external advisory groups to make use of a broad range of expertise to ensure the study’s success. Keywords: Adolescence, Development, Neuroimaging, Longitudinal, Organizational framework, Governance

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is an ongoing, nationwide study of the effects of environmental influences on behavioral and brain development in adolescents. The main objective of the study is to recruit and assess over eleven thousand 9–10-year-olds and follow them over the course of 10 years to characterize normative brain and cognitive development, the many factors that influence brain development, and the effects of those factors on mental health and other outcomes. The study employs state-of-the-art multimodal brain imaging, cognitive and clinical assessments, bioassays, and careful assessment of substance use, environment, psychopathological symptoms, and social functioning. The data is a resource of unprecedented scale and depth for studying typical and atypical development. The aim of this manuscript is to describe the baseline neuroimaging processing and subject-level analysis methods used by ABCD. Processing and analyses include modality-specific corrections for distortions and motion, brain segmentation and cortical surface reconstruction derived from structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), analysis of brain microstructure using diffusion MRI (dMRI), task-related analysis of functional MRI (fMRI), and functional connectivity analysis of resting-state fMRI. This manuscript serves as a methodological reference for users of publicly shared neuroimaging data from the ABCD Study.

Gender is increasingly being studied for risk and protective factors underlying substance abuse and addiction.The aim of this study was to assess gender differences in rates of substance abuse and dependence among drug users.A national population sample was examined, focusing on 2 age groups (youths, aged 12-17 years, and young adults, aged 18-25 years) and several commonly abused substances (alcohol, marijuana, and nonmedical prescription medication use). Combined annual data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), aggregated from 2002-2005, were used for gender comparisons of rates of substance use, as well as abuse and dependence, among users.Overall rates of substance use were significantly higher for males than for females (P0.01 for all substances except sedatives and tranquilizers); however, patterns of use, abuse, or dependence among users differed by age group and drug. Interestingly, patterns for youths differed from the overall population and from young adults. Girls exceeded boys in their use of alcohol (P0.01) and their nonmedical use of psychotherapeutics (ie, prescription-type pain relievers, stimulants, tranquilizers, sedatives) (P0.01); among users, girls were significantly more likely to be dependent on the latter (P0.01). Boys reported significantly greater use and abuse of and dependence on marijuana (P0.01). In the young adults, the proportion of female users reporting dependence on cocaine or psychotherapeutics was significantly higher than for male users (P0.01), who nonetheless reported significantly greater use of these drugs (P0.01). Among users, males generally exceeded females in meeting abuse criteria (P0.01 for marijuana among 12- to 17-year-olds and for alcohol, marijuana, and psychotherapeutics among 18- to 25-year-olds), with some exceptions mainly in the youngest cohort.In this national population sample of youths and young adults, these findings suggest that gender, age, and substance of abuse may all play a role in the observed patterns of drug use, abuse, and dependence. Understanding the reasons for these differences and continuing to evaluate these patterns over time could help in the development of targeted and more effective prevention and treatment interventions.

Substance abuse among older adults has received little attention in the past, presumably because this population has traditionally accounted for only a small percentage of the drug abuse problem in the United States. The aging of the baby boomer generation (born 1946-1964), however, will soon swell the ranks of older adults and dramatically alter the demography of American society. Several observations suggest that this expansion will likely be accompanied by a precipitous increase in the abuse of drugs, including prescription medications and illicit substances, among older adults. While it is now evident that the brain changes continuously across life, how drugs of abuse interact with these age-related changes remains unclear. The dynamic nature of brain function, however, suggests that substance abuse during older age may augment the risks and require unique considerations for diagnosis and treatment. In addition to describing current and projected prevalence estimates of substance abuse among older adults, the present review discusses how aging affects brain systems involved in drug abuse, and explores the potential impact of drug abuse on the aging brain. Future directions for substance abuse research among older adults will also be considered.