Jacqueline Bruce, Ph.D. - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Foster children have typically been exposed to a host of early adverse experiences. It is not surprising, therefore, that numerous studies have found foster children to be a high-risk group. Rates of early-onset drug use are particularly high among foster adolescents. In the proposed study, data will be collected from a subsample of children participating in an ongoing longitudinal randomized efficacy trial of a family-based intervention program of enhanced foster care. The objectives of the proposed study are to examine the neural substrates of inhibitory control, a cognitive process that has been linked to early-onset drug use, in former foster children and non-maltreated children between the ages of 10-13 years and to investigate the long-term impact of the intervention on inhibitory control and the underlying brain regions. This study will employ event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine behavioral performance and patterns of brain activation during a go/no-go task in 15 former foster children who received the intervention, 15 former foster children who received services as usual, and 15 non-maltreated, low-income children. It is hypothesized that the former foster children will perform more poorly and will display more diffuse patterns of brain activation during the task than the normal-treated children. However, it is hypothesized that the former foster children who received the intervention are expected to demonstrate better performance and more localized activation in expected brain regions than the former foster children who received services as usual. The impact of specific dimensions of early adverse experiences (e.g., number of caregiver disruptions and severity of maltreatment) on behavioral performance and patterns of brain activation will also be examined. This study will provide the foundation for an R01 application examining the association between the neural substrates of inhibitory control and early-onset drug use in the full sample from the efficacy trial in mid-adolescence. The proposed study is designed to generate preliminary data supporting this research and enhance our capacity to collect an analyze neuroimaging data. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Foster children are at significant risk for early-onset drug use and subsequent development of drug abuse problems. The proposed study will examine the effects of early adverse experiences and a family-based intervention on the brain regions involved in inhibitory control. The knowledge generated by this study will allow us to develop more precise and targeted interventions for foster children and other at-risk populations.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to make advantageous decisions under conditions of risk is negatively related to health-risk behaviors such as delinquency, alcohol and drug use, and risky sexual behaviors. Although prior researchers have emphasized the importance of individual differences in and the developmental course of advantageous decision making, much of their research has relied on complex tasks designed to parallel real-life risky decision making. However, the complexity of these tasks has made it challenging to deconstruct the effects of outcome valence, probability level, and outcome magnitude on decision making and to examine the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of decision making. Thus, the underlying processes of decision making are not well understood. In the proposed study, we will modify an existing decision-making task, the Cups Task, for use with ERP techniques. The Cups Task assesses the ability to make advantageous decisions within the context of pure gains and losses. Each trial consists of a riskless choice that has a certain gain or loss and an uncertain, or risky, choice that has the potential to increase or decrease the gain or loss. A factorial manipulation of the probability level and outcome magnitude for the risky choices yields trials that are risk advantageous, risk equivalent, or risk disadvantageous based on the relative expected value of the certain and risky choices. Behavioral performance (e.g., proportion of risk-disadvantageous choices) and electrophysiological performance (e.g., amplitude of identified ERP components) on the modified task will be assessed in 150 participants (75 females) equally distributed across three age groups: late childhood (ages 10-11), early adolescence (ages 13-14), and late adolescence (ages 16-17). The modified task will be validated by examining the associations between behavioral and electrophysiological performance on this task and related measures such as behavioral indices of risky decision making. Additionally, the resulting dataset will provide an opportunity to examine the development of the underlying processes of decision making from late childhood to late adolescence. It is believed that research examining the processes underlying decision making will lead to the development of more precise explanatory models linking specific decision-making processes to later health-risk behaviors. Thus, this vein of research has the potential to aid in the early identification of children and adolescents at risk for later health-risk behaviors and to identify potential targets or preventive intervention services for these at-risk youth.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Maltreated adolescents involved with the child welfare system (CWS) have typically encountered a host of early adverse experiences, including prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, neglectful and abusive care, and repeated caregiver transitions. Consequently, the rates of alcohol use and abuse are significantly elevated among these adolescents. Despite extensive documentation of increased alcohol use among maltreated adolescents, there are limited research findings to guide the development of targeted preventive intervention services for this population. Thus, consistent with the objectives of PA-10-255, the proposed study is designed to investigate the impact of specific early adverse experiences and the cognitive processes underlying behavioral regulation (i.e., risk taking and inhibitory control) on the developmental trajectories of alcohol use in maltreated adolescents and nonmaltreated adolescents. It has been argued that behavioral regulation is influenced by the activity of two neural systems-the ventral striatal system underlying risk taking and the prefrontal system underlying inhibitory control-and that a maturational imbalance between these neural systems contributes to the dramatic increase in alcohol use in adolescence. We will examine the developmental trajectories of risk taking and inhibitory control across adolescence and will investigate the impact of these cognitive processes on early-onset alcohol use in maltreated adolescents and their nonmaltreated peers. Because behavioral regulation is believed to underlie a number of externalizing problems, we will also determine whether deficits in these cognitive processes are related to early-onset alcohol use specifically or to externalizing problems more broadly. In addition, our prior research findings have shown that specific dimensions of early adverse experiences (e.g., severity of physical neglect and number of caregiver transitions) are associated with alterations in key neurobiological systems. Hence, we will investigate the impact of specific early adverse experiences on the developmental trajectories of risk taking, inhibitory control, and early-onset alcohol use. To accomplish these aims, we will assess risk-taking propensity and inhibitory control ability (via adolescent report, caregiver report, and behavioral and electrophysiological performance on tasks that activate specific neural systems) and early-onset alcohol use (via adolescent and caregiver reports) in 150 maltreated adolescents involved with the CWS and 150 low-income, nonmaltreated adolescents. We will collect four waves of data from early (12-13 years) to middle (15-16 years) adolescence to examine the developmental trajectories of risk taking, inhibitory control, and alcohol use across this critical period. The results of the proposed study will pinpoint specific cognitive processes to target in future preventive intervention services for the CWS and other at-risk populations. Additionally, these results will aid in the early identification of the maltreted adolescents most at risk for early-onset alcohol use.