Multivariate Patterns of Brain-Behavior-Environment Associations in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is a critical developmental stage. A key challenge is to characterize how variation in adolescent brain organization relates to psychosocial and environmental influences. METHODS: We used canonical correlation analysis to discover distinct patterns of covariation between measures of brain organization (brain morphometry, intracortical myelination, white matter integrity, and resting-state functional connectivity) and individual, psychosocial, and environmental factors in a nationally representative U.S. sample of 9623 individuals (aged 9-10 years, 49% female) participating in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. RESULTS: These analyses identified 14 reliable modes of brain-behavior-environment covariation (canonical r discovery = .21 to .49, canonical r test = .10 to .39, p false discovery rate corrected , .0001). Across modes, neighborhood environment, parental characteristics, quality of family life, perinatal history, cardiometabolic health, cognition, and psychopathology had the most consistent and replicable associations with multiple measures of brain organization; positive and negative exposures converged to form patterns of psychosocial advantage or adversity. These showed modality-general, respectively positive or negative, associations with brain structure and function with little evidence of regional specificity. Nested within these cross-modal patterns were more specific associations between prefrontal measures of morphometry, intracortical myelination, and functional connectivity with affective psychopathology, cognition, and family environment. CONCLUSIONS: We identified clusters of exposures that showed consistent modality-general associations with global measures of brain organization. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the complex and intertwined influences on brain organization and mental function during development and have the potential to inform public health policies aiming toward interventions to improve mental well-being.

Measurement matters: An individual differences examination of family socioeconomic factors, latent dimensions of children’s experiences, and resting state functional brain connectivity in the ABCD sample

“…Although studies using the ABCD sample have begun uncovering associations between aspects of children’s environments and rsFC ( Thijssen et al, 2020 , Modabbernia et al, 2021 , Ellwood-Lowe et al, 2020 , Hong et al, 2021 , Rakesh et al, 2021b ), approaches that aim to disentangle the effects of broader socioeconomic context (e.g., SES, parental education) from youths’ downstream experiences of these broader contexts (e.g., their home environment) remain to be explored. Based on prior work mentioned above (e.g., Brody et al, 2019 ), it is likely that the magnitude of SES effects on brain connectivity will be stronger in the context of proximal environmental factors.…”

Widespread attenuating changes in brain connectivity associated with the general factor of psychopathology in 9- and 10-year olds

“…These findings raise the possibility that the P factor involves alterations in networks involved in the generation of spontaneous thought (default mode network, DMN) and bottomup attention (ventral attention network, VAN), as well as networks involved in cognitive control (e.g., frontoparietal network, FPN, dorsal attention network, DAN; cingulo-opercular network, CO) [14]. Recent studies found altered functional-connectivity patterns associated with transdiagnostic dimensions [15][16][17][18][19][20][21], but findings have been mixed and await further clarification.…”

Role of Cumulative Risk Factors in the Development of Substance Abuse

“…Nörogörüntülemeyle yapılan bir çalışmada sosyoekonomik koşullar, ebeveyn ilgisi, perinatal olaylar ve bilişsel yetenek düzeyi psikopatoloji yüküyle en tutarlı şekilde ilişkilendirilen faktörler olarak saptanmıştır (68). Çalışmamızın bulguları arasında bu faktörlerden perinatal olaylar dışındaki üçü doğrudan veya dolaylı olarak bulunmaktadır.…”