The largest longitudinal neuroimaging study showed that brain activation in adolescents could provide new insights into the cognitive processes and brain systems involved in their development that might explain the risk factors of mental health challenges in adulthood.
Since many mental health disorders usually appear between the ages of ten to 20, this has become a field of interest for scientists, particularly on the brain, cognitive, and emotional maturation. Understanding the neurodevelopment of adolescents and how it is affected by various risk factors could explain adult behavior.
They published their study, "Baseline brain function in the preadolescents of the ABCD Study," in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Brain Activation Underlying Adolescent Development Might Explain Risk Factors for Mental Health Disorders in Adulthood, Study Suggests
The ABCD Study
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD) launched in 2016 is a decade-long longitudinal study that has 12,000 participants from ages nine to ten at 21 research sites around the US, according to the news release of the University of Vermont via Newswise.
Researchers observed brain activation of participants using the fMRI during a battery of three different tests. Then they identified how these differences in the patterns of brain activity are related to individual processes.
University of Vermont psychiatry professor Dr. Hugh Garavan, an author of the study, said that their research shows the brain regions being activated when participants are doing each task and how well they recognize individual differences. This will serve as the baseline for future papers as researchers continue to track them as they age.
According to the team, the brain maps will improve the understanding of the psychological processes that put adolescents at higher risk for developing mental and p[physical disorders. They hope to identify factors that influence brain development to better understand which interventions could help improve outcomes.
"These brain activation maps and spatial reproducibility findings will serve as a gold standard for the neuroscientific community and could help inform study design," says psychiatry assistant professor Bader Chaarani said in the news release.
They emphasized that these brain activation maps will enable cross-sectional analyses of different individuals and groups and provide a baseline for predictors of future development and behavior and quantify changes that happen with brain function that may influence cognitive and behavioral development.
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Why is Cognitive Development Important in Adolescence?
According to the paper entitled "The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth," adolescence is an important developmental stage that begins at the onset of puberty and ends in the mid-20s.
Brain plasticity at this age characterizes the malleability of adolescents. However, that does not mean that they are completely passive beings. As they explore and experiment, they learn through scaffolding and support from their environment that bolster opportunities to survive.
Ultimately, cognitive development, transformation in the body, and behavior at this age interact with each other, which plays a significant role in shaping them into adults.
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