Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study
The ABCD study is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. The ABCD Research Consortium consists of a Coordinating Center, a Data Informatics and Analysis Center, and 21 research sites across the country, which have recruited and are following nearly 12,000 children ages 9-10 into early adulthood. At our research site located at Yale University, we have recruited and are following over 630 youth. More information about the study and data access can be found here: https://abcdstudy.org/.
How does chronic stress impact what we remember in our youth?
Chronic stress has a prominent impact on physiological, biological, and metabolic systems. Individuals subjected to cumulative life stressors have a higher risk for experiencing mental illnesses and other difficulties with cognitive functions. Adolescents show a higher sensitivity to stress and an increase in number of stressors. Historical and present racial discrimination in the U.S. has been associated with long-term stress and related to mental and physical health.
How does psychopathology influence how we perceive our world?
Psychopathology can influence individuals’ cognitive and social perceptions. There is a peak in the emergence of psychopathology during adolescence. Our research focuses on how youth with psychopathology visually perceive their emotional world, specially focusing on their processing of social and emotional cues. We are using representational similarity analysis of functional MRI data to examine how neural representations of socioemotional cues differ in youth with and without psychopathologies.
When is an adolescent an adult?
Much of our research has examined the extended period of adolescence. Adolescence is a period of enhanced learning and adaptiveness to the many social, physical and cognitive demands of this development phase as they move from dependence to relative independence from their parents and caregivers. It is a time when youth form a sense of who they are and hope to be. While there are continued changes in brain and behavior over the lifespan, there are especially significant changes during the prolonged period of adolescence that extends into the twenties.