The National Institutes of Health today awarded 13 grants to research institutions around the country as part of a landmark study about the effects of adolescent substance use on the developing brain. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study will follow approximately 10,000 children beginning at ages 9 to10, before they initiate drug use, through the period of highest risk for substance use and other mental health disorders. Scientists will track exposure to substances (including nicotine, alcohol, and marijuana), academic achievement, cognitive skills, mental health, and brain structure and function using advanced research methods.
"With advances in neuroimaging and other investigative tools, we will be able to look in greater detail at the impact of substance use on young people," said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). "Adolescents have access to high potency marijuana and greater varieties of nicotine delivery devices than previous generations. We want to know how that and other trends affect the trajectory of the developing brain."
"The ABCD Study is an important opportunity to closely examine, in humans, the hypothesized link between adolescent alcohol abuse and long-term harmful effects on brain development and function," said George Koob, Ph.D., director of NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). "Recent human studies have revealed an acceleration in the typical decline in volume of neocortical areas and smaller increases in white matter volume in adolescents who transitioned to heavy drinking compared to those who did not using magnetic resonance imaging."
The ABCD Study will seek to address many questions related to substance use and development that will help inform prevention and treatment research priorities, public health strategies, and policy decisions, including:
- What is the impact of occasional versus regular use of marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, and other substances, alone or in combination, on the structure and function of the developing brain?
- How does the use of specific substances impact the risk for using other substances?
- What are the brain pathways that link adolescent substance use and risk for mental illnesses?
- What impact does substance use have on physical health, psychological development, information processing, learning and memory, academic achievement, social development, and other behaviors?
- What factors (such as prenatal exposure, genetics, head trauma, and demographics) influence the development of substance use and its consequences?
Study finds dysfunction of key brain systems in people with psychosis