Friday, March 14, 2025
3/14/2025
PROJECT SUMMARY Excessive alcohol drinking Initiated during adolescence is known to disturb typical neurodevelopmental patterns, increase the risk of developing alcohol use disorder (AUD), and accelerate involutional processes in adulthood. In response to RFA-AA-21-009, the Data Analysis Resource (DAR) proposes to support the next 5 years' data collection and analysis across a diverse community sample of male and female participants that were recruited in 3 age bands between 12 and 21 years old, were mostly no-to-low drinkers, and tracked over the last 8 years across 5 sites (N=831; 93% retention rate). Monitoring has involved annually-acquired multimodal neuroimaging (MRI, DTI, resting state fMRI, task fMRI) and cognitive, clinical, behavioral, and biological data, collected in person or remotely by computer and our mobile app. These measures will now be complemented with new advanced neuroimaging and sleep and physical activity tracking. This cohort sequential design uniquely positions NCANDA-A to quantify transient or enduring alcohol-related disturbances in specific adolescent and early adult neural system growth trajectories and functional concomitants. NCANDA-A proposes four consortium-wide specific aims and two specialty project aims. In Aim 1, NCANDA-A will investigate the impact of excessive alcohol drinking during adolescence and emerging adulthood on subsequent developmental trajectories of cognitive performance, brain structure and function, and psychopathology. Aim 2 analyses will identify neurodevelopment patterns describing the extent to which alcohol’s effects on brain structure and function resolve or persist during desistance after binge drinking. Aim 3 will deploy data-driven analysis to identify adolescent biological, environmental, and behavioral factors (e.g., age of drinking onset) that forecast excessive drinking during early adulthood. In Aim 4, NCANDA-A will quantify the impact of the COVID pandemic on life stress and social, emotional, and economic wellbeing and their relations with alcohol use patterns. For each aim, sex differences in development, alcohol use patterns and history, impact of alcohol use on the brain, and sex-differentiating psychosocial factors will be tested. The goal of the DAR is to support hypothesis testing based on five aims. Aim D1 will ensure that procedures for collection and quality control of neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and clinical assessment data are standardized. In Aim D2, the DAR will advance the existing informatics infrastructure for integrating data collected across all sites. Aim D3 will enhance macrostructural, microstructural, and functional neuroimage processing and analysis. In Aim D4, the DAR will create machine (deep) learning frameworks identifying predictive markers of early adulthood drinking. Aim D5 will maintain data sharing and distribution systems for consortium PIs and the scientific public at large. With the longitudinal data collected into early adulthood during this renewal, NCANDA-A will provide novel information to the public on the enduring and transient effects of adolescent drinking on adult functioning.
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