Any parent can tell you that it’s a tumultuous time when their children reach the age of 9 or 10. 在这一点上, a child experiences daily physical, 情感, and social changes that signal the approach of adulthood. For the 10 years after, kids also undergo intense brain development that includes rapid cognitive growth and fine-tuning of neural circuits. 的y start thinking and acting in ways that seem downright grown-up.
To understand how the brain changes and matures during late childhood and adolescence, 21 research centers across the country have enrolled 12,000 children in the Adolescent Brain and Child Development (ABCD) study. 的 researchers aimed for a sample that reflects the nation’s diversity by recruiting through schools selected according to the students’ gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and the population density where they live. It’s the largest long-term study in the country of physical and behavioral development. With 1,000 participants, HMHI is the leading site.
的 findings will help researchers understand how childhood experiences influence brain development and impact behavior later in life.
“Adolescence is a time when we often see the emergence of depression, 焦虑, and substance abuse,” Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, PhD, principal investigator for the study. “With this baseline data, we’ll learn whether brain patterns change in children who develop these problems compared to those who don’t.”
“We now have a very large database we can use to quantify and describe brain function. 的re’s never been a resource like this available to the scientific community.”
Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, PhD, Vice Chair of 研究
调节驱动
的 ABCD财团 has collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans revealing patterns of brain activity in more than 12,000 9-and 10-year-old children. A study reported in Nature Neuroscience used data from 6,000 participants to determine the active parts of the brain when children take part in three cognitive tasks— reward processing, 工作记忆, and inhibitory control.
As children mature, the prefrontal area of the brain helps them self-regulate these executive functions. “的re’s evidence that the brain handles these tasks differently in people with mood disorders or who use drugs or alcohol,” Yurgelun-Todd.
During the same period in a child’s life, basic drives related to reward circuitry may increase desire for food or sex. 的 relationship between these drives and inhibitory control may be a key to whether children engage in healthy decision making—because those who don’t could be at increased risk of developing disorders like depression or addiction. To track how these brain circuits change over time, the researchers will collect new fMRI scans every two years during the study.
Nurturing Kids’ Best Selves
除了…之外 神经影像学 and physical exams, researchers conduct behavioral and cognitive assessments of study participants. 的y document factors like sleep patterns, 屏幕时间, 艺术介入, sports participation, 药物使用, and even social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 的y ultimately hope to predict normative development across all the parameters over a decade.
的 wider research community has free access to all the data collected for further analysis. 例如, the average height and weight and blood counts for the children may help guide public health decisions related to growth and development.
也, sharing the broad data with schools may help clarify factors that impact learning, such as sleep and nutrition, and provide early indicators of risk. Schools may use that information to identify kids who might require extra help for mental well-being.
“Ultimately, we hope to help every child become their healthiest self,” Yurgelun-Todd. 的 lessons from the ABCD study will move that wish closer to reality.