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.

Academic performance significantly influences educational advancement, career opportunities, and life outcomes. The extent to which adolescent substance use and brain morphology predict academic achievement has not been extensively explored. We examined grade point average (GPA) at the time alcohol and cannabis use often starts (7th - 9th grade) and subsequently during 11th and 12th grade in a 170 physically healthy adolescents in a longitudinal study. Covariance analysis examined predictive features from 36 metrics of middle school academic performance and initiation of alcohol and cannabis use. Using a machine learning approach, GPA from 7th, 8th, and 9th grade strongly predicted 11th and 12th grade GPA, followed in predictive power by alcohol use age of onset. A machine learning approach determined 16 (from 336) baseline neuroimaging features that reflected lower thickness, area, or volume in average high school GPA drinkers compared to nondrinkers. Features that distinguished average performing drinkers from nondrinkers suggested accelerated gray matter loss during adolescence for drinkers, while high performing drinkers compared to nondrinkers may have attenuated gray matter maturation. Additional possibilities are discussed.

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.

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.

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.

Background

Dual systems theories suggest that greater imbalance between higher reward sensitivity and lower cognitive control across adolescence conveys risk for behaviors such as heavy episodic drinking (HED). Prior research demonstrated that psychological analogues of these systems, sensation seeking and premeditation, change from childhood through emerging adulthood, and each has been independently linked with HED. However, few studies have assessed whether change over time in these developing analogues is prospectively associated with HED. Moreover, we know of no research that has shown whether within-person differences between higher sensation seeking and relatively lower premeditation across the adolescent period predict HED in emerging adulthood.

Methods

Prospective data from the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence study (n = 715) were used to examine the association of sensation seeking and premeditation with HED among adolescents ages 16 to 20 years. We used novel applications of latent difference score modeling and growth curve analysis to test whether increasing sensation seeking, premeditation, and their imbalance over time are associated with HED across the study period, and whether these associations differed by sex.

Results

Whereas premeditation increased linearly from adolescence through emerging adulthood across sexes, males reported growth and females reported decline in sensation seeking. Sensation seeking in adolescence (and not premeditation) was associated with higher levels of HED by emerging adulthood. Importantly, greater imbalance between sensation seeking and premeditation was associated with higher levels of HED by emerging adulthood though we note that variability capturing this imbalance correlated highly (r = 0.86) with baseline levels of sensation seeking.

Conclusions

Developmental imbalance between higher sensation seeking and lower premeditation in late adolescence may be a risk factor for greater HED in emerging adulthood.

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.