Sports participation moderates the risk of family-specific negative life events on alcohol use among adolescents: Evidence from the longitudinal MyLife study.

Negative life events (NLE) have been associated with increased alcohol use (AU) during adolescence. However, whether this risk association may be modified by leisure activities such as sports participation (SP) remains poorly understood. This study examined whether accumulated family-specific NLE in particular were associated with greater AU, and if so, whether SP moderated this association to reduce AU among high-NLE adolescents. We examined five annual assessments from a nationwide cohort of 3,422 Norwegian adolescents (13-15 year-olds; 55.3 % girls at baseline) who participated in the MyLife study. At each assessment, adolescents reported their AU on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Concise (AUDIT-C), the number of family-specific NLE in the past 12 months, SP days in the past 30 days, and multiple sociodemographic and individual-level characteristics (covariates). Changes over time in AU as a function of NLE, SP, and their interaction (NLExSP) were examined with a set of partially nested growth curve models. AU increased non-linearly over time in all models. The fully adjusted best-fitting model showed significant NLExSP interactions (estimate = -0.013, 95% CI [-0.02, -0.006]), such that the initial AUDIT-C scores were lower for high-NLE adolescents with high SP and greater for high-NLE adolescents with low SP. Further, linear increases in AU over time were marginally steeper for high-NLE adolescents with high SP (NLExSPxTime estimate = 0.034, 95% CI [-0.0002, 0.007]). Thus, SP appeared to have a protective role in reducing AU for high-NLE youth primarily during middle school years. Prevention efforts thus may utilize organized sports for youth facing family-specific NLE as a resource early on.

Examining within-person associations between alcohol and cannabis use and hooking up among adolescents and young adults in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined daily associations between alcohol use, cannabis use, and simultaneous alcohol and cannabis/marijuana (SAM) use with the likelihood of hooking up (uncommitted sexual encounter that may or may not include intercourse). METHOD: We used a longitudinal measurement burst ecological momentary assessment (EMA) design with 3-week EMA bursts with daily measurements repeated quarterly across 12 months. 1,009 (57 % female, Mean age = 20.00 [SD = 3.21]) Texan adolescents and young adults ages 15-25 participated in the study. Mixed effects logistic regression models were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate the associations between substance use and hooking up. RESULTS: Within-person results indicated that participants were more likely to hook up on days with alcohol use and on days with cannabis use, but not on days with SAM use. Participants were also more likely to hook up on drinking days with higher-than-usual alcohol use. Between-person results indicated that participants who used alcohol more often or cannabis more often on average were more likely to hook up, and participants who tended to drink more on drinking days were more likely to hook up. CONCLUSIONS: Given the significant daily-level associations between alcohol and cannabis use and hooking up behavior, public health initiatives should focus on developing interventions to reduce alcohol and cannabis use and promote safer hooking up behavior among adolescents and young adults.

The role of psychosocial factors and biological sex on rural Thai adolescents' drinking intention and behaviours: A structural equation model.

AIMS: To examine the contributions of psychosocial factors (attitude towards drinking, perceived drinking norms [PDNs], perceived behavioural control [PBC]), and biological sex on drinking intention and behaviours among rural Thai adolescents. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study design. METHODS: In 2022, stratified by sex and grade, we randomly selected 474 rural Thai adolescents (Mage = 14.5 years; SD = 0.92; 50.6% male) from eight public district schools in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand, to complete a self-administered questionnaire. Structural equation modelling with the weighted least square mean and variance adjusted was used for data analysis. RESULTS: All adolescents' psychosocial factors contributed significantly to the prediction of drinking intention, which subsequently influenced their drinking onset, current drinking and binge drinking pattern in the past 30 days. PDNs emerged as the strongest psychosocial predictor of drinking intention, followed by PBC. Rural adolescents' drinking intention significantly mediated the relationship between all psychosocial factors and drinking behaviours either fully or partially. The path coefficient between drinking attitude and drinking intention was significantly different between males and females. CONCLUSION: Different from previous studies focus on adolescents' drinking attitude, rural Thai adolescents' PDNs play a significant role on their drinking intention and subsequently their drinking onset and patterns. This nuanced understanding supports a paradigm shift to target adolescents' perceived drinking norms as a means to delay their drinking onset and problematic drinking behaviours. IMPACT: Higher levels of perceived drinking norms significantly led to the increase in drinking intention among adolescents. Minimizing adolescents' perceptions of favourable drinking norms and promoting their capacity to resist drinking, especially due to peer pressure, are recommended for nursing roles as essential components of health education campaigns and future efforts to prevent underage drinking. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: In this study, there was no public or patient involvement.

Daily-level associations between alcohol use cognitions and normative perceptions among adolescents: An intensive longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is an important developmental period in which to understand the cognitive underpinnings of risky alcohol use. Normative perceptions, such as descriptive and injunctive norms, are one of the strongest and most consistent predictors in adolescent drinking research. Thus, it is essential to examine which drinking cognitions (e.g., attitudes, prototypes, perceived vulnerability) are associated with normative drinking perceptions using repeated daily-level data among adolescents. The present study assessed associations between drinking cognitions and normative perceptions using an intensive daily longitudinal design. METHODS: Participants were ages 15-17 years (N = 306; 61.4% female; Mage (SD) = 16.0 (0.8)) who were part of a larger ecological momentary assessment study (EMA) on drinking cognitions and alcohol use. The study design consisted of a 3-week EMA burst design (8 surveys per week, up to 2x/day) that was repeated quarterly over the 12-month study. The present analyses used the afternoon assessment for all measures. RESULTS: Our multilevel model results demonstrated that drinking attitudes, prototypes of a typical drinker, and perceived vulnerability were positively associated with both descriptive and injunctive drinking norms between individuals and within individuals across days. CONCLUSIONS: Current findings have important clinical implications as they demonstrated how specific drinking cognitions were associated with variability in normative perceptions at the daily level. Findings support the delivery of intervention messaging to adolescents on days when drinking attitudes, prototypes of a typical drinker, and perceived vulnerability are elevated.

Characterizing Alcohol Expectancies in the ABCD Study: Associations with Sociodemographic Factors, the Immediate Social Environment, and Genetic Propensities.

Alcohol expectancies (AEs) are associated with likelihood of alcohol initiation and subsequent alcohol use disorders. It is unclear whether genetic predisposition to alcohol use and/or related traits contributes to shaping how one expects to feel when drinking alcohol. We used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to examine associations between genetic propensities (i.e., polygenic risk for problematic alcohol use, depression, risk-taking), sociodemographic factors (i.e., parent income), and the immediate social environment (i.e., peer use and disapproval toward alcohol) and positive and negative AEs in alcohol-naïve children (max analytic N = 5,352). Mixed-effect regression models showed that age, parental education, importance of the child's religious beliefs, adverse childhood experiences, and peer disapproval of alcohol use were associated with positive and/or negative AEs, to varying degrees. Overall, our results suggest several familial and psychosocial predictors of AEs but little evidence of contributions from polygenic liability to problematic alcohol use or related phenotypes.

Parental monitoring, family conflict, and adolescent alcohol use: A longitudinal latent class analysis.

This study examined relationships among parental monitoring, family conflict, and subgroups of adolescent alcohol use identified through longitudinal latent class analyses (LLCA). Differences in these subgroups across sex and race/ethnicity were also examined. The present study used data (N = 4,067; 51% male, 49% female) collected during a longitudinal study in which adolescents completed questionnaires each semester for seven semesters, beginning in spring of their freshman year of high school until spring of their senior year. LLCA demonstrated three classes of drinking over time (low, increasing, and moderate use). The majority of adolescents were increasing-use drinkers. Moderate drinkers were more likely to be male than female; nondrinkers were most likely to be African American; and increasing-use drinkers were more likely to be Mexican American. Adolescents who received less maternal monitoring and experienced more family conflict were more likely to be identified in the class of moderate alcohol use compared to nonuse. These results highlight the importance of encouraging parental monitoring and decreasing family conflict to reduce the likelihood of adolescent alcohol use throughout the high school years (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Predictors of Sexual Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration Among Men: A Prospective Analysis.

Research demonstrates that both peer socialization and underage drinking play a significant role in teen dating violence. However, less is known about the lasting effects of these risk factors on boys' ability to form healthy romantic relationships as they get older. The present study examined whether boys who perceived their peers would respect them more for having sex and those who engaged in past year heavy alcohol use would be more likely to perpetrate sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) in young adulthood compared to boys who did not endorse perceived peer approval for sex or report past year heavy drinking. Analyses were conducted using a sample of boys (n = 1,189) from Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). A logistic regression was conducted to assess the relationship between perceived peer approval to have sex and heavy alcohol use at Wave I and sexual IPV at Wave III, after adjusting for demographic factors and other correlates of sexual IPV at Wave I, including age, race/ethnicity, sexual initiation in adolescence, parental attachment, annual family income, and neighborhood poverty. Boys who believed they would gain peer respect by having sex and boys who reported getting drunk in the last 12 months, regardless of how often, were significantly more likely to report sexual IPV in young adulthood compared to boys who did not endorse either of these factors. Targeting boys' perceived peer norms regarding sexual activity and heavy alcohol use may therefore be especially important for preventing sexual IPV later in life.

Naltrexone moderates the association of alcohol use and affect among adolescent drinkers in daily life.

BACKGROUND: Naltrexone is an efficacious medication for the treatment of alcohol use disorder in adults. As an opioid receptor antagonist, naltrexone blocks activation of the endogenous opioid system, which is involved in the affectively reinforcing properties of substance use. Few studies, however, have examined the moderating effect of naltrexone on the association between affect and alcohol use. Additionally, most existing research on naltrexone has been with adults in the human laboratory. METHOD: We conducted a secondary analysis of ecological momentary assessment data from a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled cross-over study that compared naltrexone (50 mg/daily) and placebo in 26 adolescents (15 to 19 years old) who exhibited problematic drinking patterns. Multilevel models tested whether naltrexone moderated associations of alcohol use with both positive and negative affect (PA, NA). RESULTS: Results indicated that, during naltrexone treatment, greater estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) levels were associated with greater NA further into drinking episodes. In turn, greater NA after the first drink of an episode was associated with reduced subsequent eBAC values during naltrexone treatment. Low PA was also associated with lower subsequent eBAC levels in the naltrexone condition after the first drink. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the idea that naltrexone can disrupt the association between affect and alcohol use, effects that emerge later in drinking episodes. Greater attention to the effects of naltrexone on affect and reinforcement may help to tailor psychotherapy to maximize the benefits of naltrexone. However, in the present study, as most drink reports were in the first 2 h of the drinking episode and participants reported affect only at the first three end-drink reports of a drinking episode (limiting the number of drinks reported), we had reduced power to detect effects in the continuation phase. Thus, replication of the findings is needed using a design that assesses the impact of naltrexone across the entire episode.

Risk-taking behaviors in adolescent men who have sex with men (MSM): An association between homophobic victimization and alcohol consumption.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine whether homophobic victimization was associated with alcohol consumption and riding with an intoxicated driver or driving a car while under the influence of alcohol or drugs among adolescent men who have sex with men (MSM). METHODS: Cross-sectional analysis used baseline data from a national HIV prevention trial (NCT03167606) for adolescent MSM aged 13-18 years (N = 747). Multivariable logistic regression models assessed associations between homophobic victimization (independent variable) and alcohol-related outcomes (dependent variables), controlling for age, parents' education level, sexual orientation, health literacy, race, and ethnicity. RESULTS: Most participants (87%) reported at least one form of homophobic victimization in their lifetime, with verbal insults being the most frequently reported (82%). In the bivariate analysis, alcohol consumption and riding with an intoxicated driver or driving a car while under the influence were associated with many forms of victimization. Exposure to at least one form of victimization was associated with increased odds of alcohol consumption (OR: 2.31; 95% CI: 1.38-3.87) and riding with an intoxicated driver or driving a car while under the influence (OR: 2.25; 95% CI: 1.26-4.00), after controlling for covariates. CONCLUSION: Increased risk of alcohol consumption and risky alcohol-related behaviors were found among adolescent MSM who experienced homophobic victimization. Interventions should address homophobic victimization and its impact on adolescent MSM, as well as disentangling motivations for underage drinking, riding with an intoxicated driver or driving a car while under the influence.

Negative evaluation of role transitions is associated with perceived stress and alcohol consequences: Examination of the Transitions Overload Model in young adulthood using two years of monthly data.

BACKGROUND: Young adulthood is characterized by transitions into and out of social roles in multiple domains. Consistent with self-medication models of alcohol use, the Transitions Overload Model (J Stud Alcohol Suppl, 14, 2002, 54) hypothesizes that one cause of increased alcohol use during young adulthood may be the stress of navigating simultaneous role transitions. This study examined the simultaneous occurrence of major developmental role transitions in the domains of education, employment, romantic relationships, and residential status and their associations with perceived stress, heavy episodic drinking (HED), and negative alcohol-related consequences. Further, we extended the Transitions Overload Model to explore whether the number of transitions rated as having a negative impact on one's life was related to perceived stress, HED, and alcohol-related consequences. METHODS: A community sample of young adult drinkers (N = 767, 57% women, ages 18 to 25 years) in the Pacific Northwest provided monthly data across 2 years. Multilevel models were used to assess the average (between-person) and month-to-month (within-person) associations of role transitions with perceived stress, HED, and negative alcohol-related consequences. RESULTS: Although having more role transitions was positively associated with HED frequency and alcohol-related consequences at both the between- and within-person (monthly) levels, it was not associated with increased stress. The number of transitions rated as having a negative impact on one's life, however, was positively associated with stress. Thus, rather than the total number of transitions, it is the number of negatively perceived major developmental role transitions that is associated with perceived stress and increased risk for negative alcohol-related consequences. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to Transitions Overload Model assumptions, more transitions were not a significant predictor of more perceived stress; rather, the evaluation of the transition as negative was associated with stress and negative alcohol-related outcomes. This distinction may help elucidate the etiology of stress and subsequent alcohol consequences and identify individuals at-risk of these effects.

Peer influence in adolescent drinking behavior: A meta-analysis of stochastic actor-based modeling studies.

OBJECTIVES: To measure the effects of peer influence and peer selection on drinking behavior in adolescence through a rigorous statistical approach designed to unravel these interrelated processes. METHODS: We conducted systematic searches of electronic databases, thesis collections and conference proceedings to identify studies that used longitudinal network design and stochastic actor-oriented modeling to analyze drinking behavior in adolescents. Parameter estimates collected from individual studies were analyzed using multilevel random-effects models. RESULTS: We identified 26 articles eligible for meta-analysis. Meta-analyses for different specifications of the peer influence effect were conducted separately. The peer influence effect was positive for every specification: for average similarity (avSim) mean log odds ratio was 1.27 with 95% confidence interval [0.04; 2.49]; for total similarity (totSim) 0.46 (95% CI = [0.44; 0.48]), and for average alter (avAlt) 0.70 (95% CI = [-0.01; 1.41]). The peer selection effect (simX) was also positive: 0.46 (95% CI = [0.28; 0.63]). Conversion log odds ratio values to Cohen's d gives estimates from 0.25 to 0.70, which is considered as medium to large effect. CONCLUSIONS: Advances in methodology for social network analysis have made it possible to accurately estimate peer influence effects free from peer selection effects. More research is necessary to clarify the roles of age, gender, and individual susceptibility on the changing behavior of adolescents under the influence of their peers. Understanding the effects of peer influence should inform practitioners and policy makers to design and deliver more effective prevention programs.

Limited Evidence of Associations Between Executive Functioning and Alcohol Involvement In UK Adolescents.

AIMS: Deficits in motor inhibitory control and working memory have been hypothesized to be both a cause and consequence of heavy alcohol use. Adolescence is a critical developmental stage for inhibitory control and working memory, and it is also a stage when individuals are most likely to initiate alcohol use. This study aimed to examine whether inhibitory control and working memory would predict alcohol use and involvement in a group of UK adolescents. METHODS: We recruited 220 (N = 178, female) adolescents, aged between 16 and 18, from eight higher education settings in the Merseyside region of the UK. Alcohol use was examined using the Timeline Follow-Back and involvement (and related problems) using the Adolescent Alcohol Involvement Scale. A reward-based inhibitory control task (Go/No-Go) was used to examine the inhibition and reward sensitivity, and a self-ordered pointing task was used to measure working memory. RESULTS: Multiple regression demonstrated that neither inhibitory control (b = 0.02 (95% confidence interval (CI): -0.21, 0.24)) nor working memory (b = -0.12 (95% CI: -0.30, 0.07)) were significant predictors of alcohol use (units consumed). Inhibitory control (b = 0.61 (95% CI: 0.12, 1.09), specifically, in the no reward condition and school deprivation (b = 0.67 (95% CI: 0.06, 1.28) significantly predicted alcohol-related problems. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrated limited evidence that deficits in specific mechanisms of executive functioning (i.e. motor inhibition and working memory) were associated with alcohol-related problems in UK adolescents. This study adds to an increasing body of literature suggesting weak or non-existent links between inhibitory control, working memory and alcohol use.

Do alcohol interventions affect peers who do not receive the intervention? Modeling treatment contagion effects via simulations of adolescent social networks.

OBJECTIVE: Adolescents' drinking is influenced by their friends' drinking. However, it is unclear whether individually-targeted alcohol interventions reduce drinking in the friends of individuals who receive the intervention. This study used simulations of drinking in simulated longitudinal social networks to test whether individually-targeted alcohol interventions may be expected to spread to non-targeted individuals. METHOD: Stochastic actor-based models simulated longitudinal social networks where changes in drinking and friendships were modeled using parameters from a meta-analysis of high school 10th grade social networks. Social influence (i.e., how much one's friends' drinking affects their own drinking) and social selection (i.e., how much one's drinking affects who they select as friends) were manipulated at several levels. At the midpoint of each simulation, a randomly-selected heavy-drinking individual was experimentally assigned to an intervention (changing their drinking status to non-drinking) or a control condition (no change in drinking status) and the drinking statuses of that individual's friends were recorded at the end of the simulation. RESULTS: Friends of individuals who received the intervention significantly reduced their drinking, with higher reductions occurring in networks with greater social influence. However, all effect sizes were small (e.g., average per-friend reduction of .07 on a 5-point drinking scale). CONCLUSIONS: Individually-targeted alcohol interventions may have small effects on reducing the drinking of non-targeted adolescents, with social influence being a mechanism that drives such effects. Due to small effect sizes, many adolescents may need to receive alcohol interventions to produce measurable effects on drinking outcomes for non-targeted individuals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

How adolescents' working memory abilities relate to their alcohol craving in real-life contexts depends on biological sex.

AIM: We sought to elucidate whether stress, peers, and in vivo (i.e., direct) alcohol cues elicit alcohol craving in daily life among adolescents and to test whether individual variation in working memory function and biological sex alters these associations. METHODS: We leveraged ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine momentary associations between stress, peers, and direct alcohol cues with craving, assessed as "urge to drink alcohol," among 86 male (51.2 %) and female (48.8 %) frequent drinkers (i.e., two or more drinking days per week). Participants were ages 14-24 years (M = 20.7 years, SD = 2.1). Participants completed EMA throughout the day for about one week prior to randomization to a treatment condition for an AUD clinical trial. Pre-registered, secondary analyses focused on craving for assessments when adolescents were not drinking, and assessments occurring after drinking on drinking days were removed. Working memory performance was assessed in the laboratory via the Memory for Words subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities. RESULTS: Craving was heightened at more stressful moments and when adolescents were with their peers and in the presence of direct alcohol cues. Working memory function was not related to craving but altered the relation of momentary stress, peers, and cues with craving once biological sex-related differences were considered. Females generally had lower craving than males, but working memory function served to buffer against stress-induced craving for males. CONCLUSIONS: Higher working memory function buffered the in-the-moment relation of stress with alcohol craving for males but not females.

The association between child alcohol sipping and alcohol expectancies in the ABCD study.

BACKGROUND: Underage drinking is a serious societal concern, yet relatively little is known about child sipping of alcohol and its relation to beliefs about alcohol. The current study aimed to (1) examine the contexts in which the first sip of alcohol occurs (e.g., type of alcohol, who provided sip, sip offered or taken without permission); (2) examine the association between sipping and alcohol expectancies; and (3) explore how different contexts of sipping are related to alcohol expectancies. We expected to find that children who had sipped alcohol would have increased positive expectancies and reduced negative expectancies compared to children who had never sipped alcohol. METHODS: Data were derived from the 2.0 release of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a longitudinal study of children in the United States. We utilized data from 4,842 children ages 9-11; 52% were male, 60% were White, 19% were Hispanic/Latinx, and 9% were Black/African American. RESULTS: We found that 22% of the sample had sipped alcohol. Children reported sipping beer most frequently, and the drink most often belonged to the child's father. We found that children who had sipped had higher positive alcohol expectancies than children who had not while accounting for variables related to alcohol expectancies. Child sipping was not significantly associated with negative expectancies and the context of the first sip of alcohol was not significantly associated with positive and negative expectancies. CONCLUSIONS: Providing sips of alcohol to children is associated with them having more favorable expectations about drinking.

Associations of parental and peer cross-substance use with 12-17-year-old adolescents' problematic alcohol use: A parent-child dyadic gender analysis.

BACKGROUND: Adolescent alcohol use was found to be influenced by parental and peer alcohol use. Drinking behaviors also differed by gender. However, previous studies mainly focused on adolescents' substance use in relation to the same substance use among their salient others. Hence, this study investigated the cross-substance relationships of alcohol and tobacco use of parents and peers with adolescents' problematic alcohol use, separately by gender. METHODS: Data were derived from 4445 adolescents aged 12-17 years from the 2014 National Survey of Substance Use, a nationally representative survey in Taiwan. Problematic alcohol use was assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). Multivariate multinomial logistic regression was used, stratified by gender. RESULTS: For males, maternal (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.73) and peer (aOR = 2.57) alcohol use was related to social drinking (AUDIT < 2); paternal (aOR = 3.58), maternal (aOR = 2.18), peer alcohol use (aOR = 5.37), and their own tobacco use (aOR = 4.72) were related to problem drinking (AUDIT ≥ 2). For females, maternal (aOR = 2.26) and peer (aOR = 2.84) alcohol use was related to social drinking; maternal (aOR = 2.35) and peer tobacco use (aOR = 3.48), and paternal (aOR = 4.56) and peer alcohol use (aOR = 3.36) were linked to problem drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Both male and female adolescents' alcohol use was associated with their peer alcohol use, and gender differences were found in relation to their parental and peer substance use. Specifically, the parental role-modeling of smoking was only significant in mother-daughter dyads. These findings could inform multifaceted adolescent alcohol prevention programs, tailoring for males and females and also targeting their parental and peer substance use.

Prospective Association of Digital Media Use with Alcohol Use Initiation and Progression Among Adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Although adolescents commonly use digital media and consume alcohol , longitudinal evidence of the association between these behaviors is scant. This study examined the association between the frequency of digital media use and the subsequent initiation or progression of alcohol use. We also examined whether these associations were moderated by gender and race/ethnicity. METHODS: The study included 2,473 adolescents from a prospective cohort in the Los Angeles, CA area who were surveyed in fall 2015 (11th grade, baseline for the current study) and every 6 months through the end of high school (Spring 2017, 12th grade). At baseline, youth self-reported the total number of 14 digital media activities (e.g., checking social media, streaming music/videos, texting) they engaged in at a high frequency (i.e., many times a day) over the past week. Scores ranged from 0 (i.e., no reported high-frequency digital media use) to 14 (i.e., reported engagement in all 14 digital media activities at a high frequency). Self-report measures of ever using alcohol, number of days of alcohol use in the past 30 days (0 to 30), binge drinking (yes/no), and covariates (i.e., demographics and measures of behavioral health and other substance use) were assessed at each time point. RESULTS: Among respondents who at baseline reported never using alcohol (n = 1,214), high-frequency engagement in each additional digital media activity was associated with 4% higher odds of initiating alcohol use (aOR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.07) across follow-up. Among respondents who at baseline reported ever using alcohol (n = 1,259), baseline high-frequency engagement in each additional digital media activity was associated at follow-up with 3% more days of alcohol use in the past 30 days (aIRR = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.06). Digital media use and binge drinking were not statistically significantly associated at follow-up. There was no evidence of moderation by gender or race/ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: Digital media use frequency was modestly associated with increased risk of initiation and progression of alcohol use in adolescence. Additional research is needed to determine potential mechanisms for these associations.

Lifetime Alcohol Use Influences the Association Between Future-Oriented Thought and White Matter Microstructure in Adolescents.

AIMS: Future orientation, or the ability to plan ahead and anticipate consequences, is a capacity that develops during adolescence, yet its underlying neurobiology is unknown. Previous independent reports suggest that reduced future orientation and altered white matter microstructure are associated with greater alcohol use in adolescents; however, these effects have not been studied in conjunction. This study investigated the association between future orientation and white matter microstructure as a function of lifetime alcohol use. METHODS: Seventy-seven adolescents (46 female; 15-21 years of age) underwent diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and completed a fifteen-item Future Orientation Questionnaire. Regression analyses assessed the association between self-reported lifetime alcohol use and future orientation, and the association between future orientation and white matter microstructure, as a function of lifetime alcohol use. RESULTS: Adolescents with more lifetime alcohol use demonstrated lower future orientation. Voxel-wise DWI analyses revealed two regions, bilateral posterior corona radiata (PCR), where greater future orientation was associated with lower mean diffusivity in those with little or no history of alcohol use; however, this association was diminished with increasing rates of lifetime alcohol use. CONCLUSIONS: These findings replicate reports of reduced future orientation as a function of greater lifetime alcohol use and demonstrate an association between future orientation and white matter microstructure, in the PCR, a region containing afferent and efferent fibers connecting the cortex to the brain stem, which depends upon lifetime alcohol use. These findings provide novel information regarding the underlying neurobiology of future-oriented thought and how it relates to alcohol use.

Association of the Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase C385A Polymorphism With Alcohol Use Severity and Coping Motives in Heavy-Drinking Youth.

BACKGROUND: Reduced function of fatty acid amide hydrolase, the catabolic enzyme for the endocannabinoid anandamide, can be inherited through a functional genetic polymorphism (FAAH rs324420, C385A, P129T). The minor (A) allele has been associated with reduced FAAH enzyme activity and increased risk for substance use disorders in adults. Whether this inherited difference in endocannabinoid metabolism relates to alcohol use disorder etiology and patterns of alcohol use in youth is unknown. METHODS: To examine this question, heavy-drinking youth (n = 302; mean age = 19.74 ± 1.18) were genotyped for FAAH C385A. All subjects completed a comprehensive interview assessing alcohol use patterns including the Timeline Follow-back Method, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), and Drinking Motives Questionnaire. Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVAs) were conducted to assess differences in drinking patterns and drinking motives between genotype groups, and mediation analyses investigated whether drinking motives accounted for indirect associations of genotype with alcohol use severity. RESULTS: Youth with the FAAH minor allele (AC or AA genotype) reported significantly more drinking days (p = 0.045), significantly more frequent heavy episodic drinking (p = 0.003), and significantly higher alcohol-related problems and consumption patterns (AUDIT score p = 0.045, AUDIT-C score p = 0.02). Mediation analyses showed that the association of FAAH C385A with drinking outcomes was mediated by coping motives. CONCLUSIONS: These findings extend previous studies by suggesting that reduced endocannabinoid metabolism may be related to heavier use of alcohol in youth, prior to the onset of chronic drinking problems. Furthermore, differences in negative reinforcement-related drinking could account in part for this association.