Smoking of cigarettes among young adolescents is a pressing public health issue. However, the neural mechanisms underlying smoking initiation and sustenance during adolescence, especially the ...potential causal interactions between altered brain development and smoking behaviour, remain elusive. Here, using large longitudinal adolescence imaging genetic cohorts, we identify associations between left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) gray matter volume (GMV) and subsequent self-reported smoking initiation, and between right vmPFC GMV and the maintenance of smoking behaviour. Rule-breaking behaviour mediates the association between smaller left vmPFC GMV and smoking behaviour based on longitudinal cross-lagged analysis and Mendelian randomisation. In contrast, smoking behaviour associated longitudinal covariation of right vmPFC GMV and sensation seeking (especially hedonic experience) highlights a potential reward-based mechanism for sustaining addictive behaviour. Taken together, our findings reveal vmPFC GMV as a possible biomarker for the early stages of nicotine addiction, with implications for its prevention and treatment.
Chronic peer victimization has long-term impacts on mental health; however, the biological mediators of this adverse relationship are unknown. We sought to determine whether adolescent brain ...development is involved in mediating the effect of peer victimization on psychopathology. We included participants (n = 682) from the longitudinal IMAGEN study with both peer victimization and neuroimaging data. Latent profile analysis identified groups of adolescents with different experiential patterns of victimization. We then associated the victimization trajectories and brain volume changes with depression, generalized anxiety, and hyperactivity symptoms at age 19. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed time-by-victimization interactions on left putamen volume (F = 4.38, p = 0.037). Changes in left putamen volume were negatively associated with generalized anxiety (t = -2.32, p = 0.020). Notably, peer victimization was indirectly associated with generalized anxiety via decreases in putamen volume (95% CI = 0.004-0.109). This was also true for the left caudate (95% CI = 0.002-0.099). These data suggest that the experience of chronic peer victimization during adolescence might induce psychopathology-relevant deviations from normative brain development. Early peer victimization interventions could prevent such pathological changes.
The diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is based on the presence of pervasive, persistent symptoms of inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity typically emerging early in ...life and resulting in significant functional impairment. In contrast to a worldwide epidemiological prevalence of approximately 5% in children and 2-3% in adults, there are significant variations in the prevalence of administrative ADHD diagnoses and medication use. We assert that in order to explore the underlying dynamics of this phenomenon, a thorough understanding of the construct ADHD is necessary. We contend that ADHD is not a natural entity that unfolds within an individual and can be understood independent from societal and environmental factors, but rather that ADHD as a diagnosis can better be conceptualized as a valid and pragmatically useful social construct. Decisions to diagnose and treat ADHD should follow a person-centered approach and be focused on functional impairment within a socially constructed, context-dependent and environmentally contingent model.
Highlights • Inhibitory brain activation was increased after Neurofeedback. • Successful learners showed increased inhibitory brain activation after training. • ADHD symptoms were reduced after ...Neurofeedback but not after control training.
Abstract Adolescents exhibit remarkable heterogeneity in the structural architecture of brain development. However, due to limited large-scale longitudinal neuroimaging studies, existing research has ...largely focused on population averages, and the neurobiological basis underlying individual heterogeneity remains poorly understood. Here we identify, using the IMAGEN adolescent cohort followed up over 9 years (14–23 y), three groups of adolescents characterized by distinct developmental patterns of whole-brain gray matter volume (GMV). Group 1 show continuously decreasing GMV associated with higher neurocognitive performances than the other two groups during adolescence. Group 2 exhibit a slower rate of GMV decrease and lower neurocognitive performances compared with Group 1, which was associated with epigenetic differences and greater environmental burden. Group 3 show increasing GMV and lower baseline neurocognitive performances due to a genetic variation. Using the UK Biobank, we show these differences may be attenuated in mid-to-late adulthood. Our study reveals clusters of adolescent neurodevelopment based on GMV and the potential long-term impact.
Moment-to-moment reaction time variability on tasks of attention, often quantified by intra-individual response variability (IRV), provides a good indication of the degree to which an individual is ...vulnerable to lapses in sustained attention. Increased IRV is a hallmark of several disorders of attention, including Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Here, task-based fMRI was used to provide the first examination of how average brain activation and functional connectivity patterns in adolescents are related to individual differences in sustained attention as measured by IRV. We computed IRV in a large sample of adolescents (n = 758) across 'Go' trials of a Stop Signal Task (SST). A data-driven, multi-step analysis approach was used to identify networks associated with low IRV (i.e., good sustained attention) and high IRV (i.e., poorer sustained attention). Low IRV was associated with greater functional segregation (i.e., stronger negative connectivity) amongst an array of brain networks, particularly between cerebellum and motor, cerebellum and prefrontal, and occipital and motor networks. In contrast, high IRV was associated with stronger positive connectivity within the motor network bilaterally and between motor and parietal, prefrontal, and limbic networks. Consistent with these observations, a separate sample of adolescents exhibiting elevated ADHD symptoms had increased fMRI activation and stronger positive connectivity within the same motor network denoting poorer sustained attention, compared to a matched asymptomatic control sample. With respect to the functional connectivity signature of low IRV, there were no statistically significant differences in networks denoting good sustained attention between the ADHD symptom group and asymptomatic control group. We propose that sustained attentional processes are facilitated by an array of neural networks working together, and provide an empirical account of how the functional role of the cerebellum extends to cognition in adolescents. This work highlights the involvement of motor cortex in the integrity of sustained attention, and suggests that atypically strong connectivity within motor networks characterizes poor attentional capacity in both typically developing and ADHD symptomatic adolescents.
Models of alcohol use risk suggest that drinking motives represent the most proximal risk factors on which more distal factors converge. However, little is known about how distinct risk factors ...influence each other and alcohol use on different temporal scales (within a given moment versus over time). We aimed to estimate the dynamic associations of distal (personality and life stressors) and proximal (drinking motives) risk factors, and their relationship to alcohol use in adolescence and early adulthood using a novel graphical vector autoregressive (GVAR) panel network approach.
We estimated panel networks on data from the IMAGEN study, a longitudinal European cohort study following adolescents across three waves (aged 16, 19 and 22 years). Our sample consisted of 1829 adolescents (51% females) who reported alcohol use on at least one assessment wave.
Risk factors included personality traits (NEO-FFI: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness; SURPS: impulsivity and sensation-seeking), stressful life events (LEQ: sum scores of stressful life events), and drinking motives drinking motives questionnaire (DMQ): social, enhancement, conformity, coping anxiety and coping depression. We assessed alcohol use alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT): quantity and frequency and alcohol-related problems (AUDIT: related problems).
Within a given moment, social partial correlation (pcor) = 0.17 and enhancement motives (pcor = 0.15) co-occurred most strongly with drinking quantity and frequency, while coping depression motives (pcor = 0.13), openness (pcor = 0.05) and impulsivity (pcor = 0.09) were related to alcohol-related problems. The temporal network showed no predictive associations between distal risk factors and drinking motives. Social motives (beta = 0.21), previous alcohol use (beta = 0.11) and openness (beta = 0.10) predicted alcohol-related problems over time (all P < 0.01).
Heavy and frequent alcohol use, along with social drinking motives, appear to be key targets for preventing the development of alcohol-related problems throughout late adolescence. We found no evidence for personality traits and life stressors predisposing towards distinct drinking motives over time.
•We revealed a robust canonical connectivity of the face network that is invariant across populations and developmental stages.•At an individual level, connectivity profiles of individuals deviated ...from the canonical one.•The magnitude of the deviation related to the presence of psychopathology.
The ability to extract cues from faces is fundamental for social animals, including humans. An individual's profile of functional connectivity across a face network can be shaped by common organizing principles, stable individual traits, and time-varying mental states. In the present study, we used data obtained with functional magnetic resonance imaging in two cohorts, IMAGEN (N = 534) and ALSPAC (N = 465), to investigate - both at group and individual levels - the consistency of the regional profile of functional connectivity across populations (IMAGEN, ALSPAC) and time (Visits 1 to 3 in IMAGEN; age 14 to 22 years). At the group level, we found a robust canonical profile of connectivity both across populations and time. At the individual level, connectivity profiles deviated from the canonical profile, and the magnitude of this deviation related to the presence of psychopathology. These findings suggest that the brain processes faces in a highly stereotypical manner, and that the deviations from this normative pattern may be related to the risk of mental illness.
PDF
