Adolescent civic engagement: Lessons from Black Lives Matter.

In 2020, individuals of all ages engaged in demonstrations condemning police brutality and supporting the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Research that used parent reports and trends commented on in popular media suggested that adolescents under 18 had become increasingly involved in this movement. In the first large-scale quantitative survey of adolescents' exposure to BLM demonstrations, 4,970 youth (meanage = 12.88 y) across the United States highlighted that they were highly engaged, particularly with media, and experienced positive emotions when exposed to the BLM movement. In addition to reporting strong engagement and positive emotions related to BLM demonstrations, Black adolescents in particular reported higher negative emotions when engaging with different types of media and more exposure to violence during in-person BLM demonstrations. Appreciating youth civic engagement, while also providing support for processing complex experiences and feelings, is important for the health and welfare of young people and society.

Individual and environmental correlates of childhood maltreatment and exposure to community violence: Utilizing a latent profile and a multilevel meta-analytic approach.

BACKGROUND: Childhood maltreatment (CM) and exposure to community violence (ETV) are correlated with physical/mental health and psychosocial problems. Typically, CM and ETV are examined separately, by subtypes within category, or collapsed across both into one category of adversity. Consequently, research is limited in identifying subgroups of individuals with different amounts of exposure to both CM and ETV. Accordingly, we lack sufficient understanding of the extent to which problems associated with CM and ETV vary based on the amount (i.e. dose) of exposure to both of these experiences. METHODS: We used 20 samples (28,300 individuals) to estimate person-centered profiles of CM and ETV occurrence and co-occurrence within each sample. An individual data multilevel meta-analytic framework was used to determine the average effect size across samples for different profiles and conditional probability correlations within sociodemographic, neighborhood, health, mental health, and psychosocial domains. RESULTS: The profile characterized by high levels of CM and high levels of ETV correlated with stressful life events, depression and anxiety symptoms, and general indicators of externalizing behaviors. CM predominant profiles were associated with mental health diagnoses and treatment. ETV predominant profiles associated with risk-taking/violent behavior and neighborhood-level disadvantage. However, nuance based on the dose of CM or ETV was evident. CONCLUSIONS: It is important to identify subgroups based on the amount of exposure to CM and ETV. These subgroups have differential relationships with correlates across domains. Greater delineation and description of the lived experience will allow for more precision in addressing the burden of childhood adversity.

Trajectories of parental harshness and exposure to community violence differentially predict externalizing and internalizing mental health problems in legal system-involved youth.

Youth with legal system involvement are especially likely to experience parental harshness (PH) and exposure to community violence (ETV), two common forms of life stress. However, most studies examine these stressors separately or collapse across them in ways that preclude examination of their co-occurrence. Consequently, it is unclear 1) how PH and ETV simultaneously fluctuate across development and 2) how these fluctuations predict future mental health problems in legal system-involved youth. We used group-based multi-trajectory modeling to estimate simultaneous trajectories of PH and ETV in 1027 legal system-involved youth and regression analyses to understand how trajectory membership predicted mental health problems three years later. Four trajectories of co-occurrence were identified (1: Low; 2: Moderate and Decreasing; 3: Moderate PH/High ETV; 4: High PH/Moderate ETV). Compared to the Low trajectory, all trajectories with PH/ETV elevations predicted violent crime and substance problems; trajectory 3 (Moderate PH/High ETV) predicted nonviolent crime and depression/anxiety symptoms; trajectory 4 (High PH/Moderate ETV) predicted depression diagnosis. These results elucidate how PH and ETV typically co-occur across adolescence for legal system-involved youth. They also reveal important commonalities and dissociations among types of mental health problems.

The role of perceived threats on mental health, social, and neurocognitive youth outcomes: A multicontextual, person-centered approach.

Perceived threat in youth's environments can elevate risk for mental health, social, and neurocognitive difficulties throughout the lifespan. However, few studies examine variability in youth's perceptions of threat across multiple contexts or evaluate outcomes across multiple domains, ultimately limiting our understanding of specific risks associated with perceived threats in different contexts. This study examined associations between perceived threat in youth's neighborhood, school, and family contexts at ages 9-10 and mental health, social, and neurocognitive outcomes at ages 11-12 within a large US cohort (N = 5525) enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study (ABCD Study®). Latent profile analysis revealed four distinct profiles: Low Threat in all contexts, Elevated Family Threat, Elevated Neighborhood Threat, and Elevated Threat in all contexts. Mixed-effect models and post hoc pairwise comparisons showed that youth in Elevated Threat profile had poorer mental health and social outcomes 2 years later. Youth in the Elevated Family Threat profile uniquely showed increased disruptive behavior symptoms, whereas youth in the Elevated Neighborhood Threat profile predominantly displayed increased sleep problems and worse neurocognitive outcomes 2 years later. Together, findings highlight the importance of considering perceptions of threat across multiple contexts to achieve a more nuanced developmental picture.

Family Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risks of Financial Insecurity and Coping.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have experienced unprecedented financial and social disruptions. We studied the impact of preexisting psychosocial factors and pandemic-related financial and social disruptions in relation to family well-being among N = 4091 adolescents and parents during early summer 2020, participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study. Poorer family well-being was linked to prepandemic psychosocial and financial adversity and was associated with pandemic-related material hardship and social disruptions to routines. Parental alcohol use increased risk for worsening of family relationships, while a greater endorsement of coping strategies was mainly associated with overall better family well-being. Financial and mental health support may be critical for family well-being during and after a widespread crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Associations among Household and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantages, Resting-state Frontoamygdala Connectivity, and Internalizing Symptoms in Youth.

Exposure to socioeconomic disadvantages (SED) can have negative impacts on mental health, yet SED are a multifaceted construct and the precise processes by which SED confer deleterious effects are less clear. Using a large and diverse sample of preadolescents (ages 9-10 years at baseline, n = 4038, 49% female) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, we examined associations among SED at both household (i.e., income-needs and material hardship) and neighborhood (i.e., area deprivation and neighborhood unsafety) levels, frontoamygdala resting-state functional connectivity, and internalizing symptoms at baseline and 1-year follow-up. SED were positively associated with internalizing symptoms at baseline and indirectly predicted symptoms 1 year later through elevated symptoms at baseline. At the household level, youth in households characterized by higher disadvantage (i.e., lower income-to-needs ratio) exhibited more strongly negative frontoamygdala coupling, particularly between the bilateral amygdala and medial OFC (mOFC) regions within the frontoparietal network. Although more strongly positive amygdala-mOFC coupling was associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms at baseline and 1-year follow-up, it did not mediate the association between income-to-needs ratio and internalizing symptoms. However, at the neighborhood level, amygdala-mOFC functional coupling moderated the effect of neighborhood deprivation on internalizing symptoms. Specifically, higher neighborhood deprivation was associated with higher internalizing symptoms for youth with more strongly positive connectivity, but not for youth with more strongly negative connectivity, suggesting a potential buffering effect. Findings highlight the importance of capturing multilevel socioecological contexts in which youth develop to identify youth who are most likely to benefit from early interventions.

Conduct disorder symptomatology is associated with an altered functional connectome in a large national youth sample.

Conduct disorder (CD), characterized by youth antisocial behavior, is associated with a variety of neurocognitive impairments. However, questions remain regarding the neural underpinnings of these impairments. To investigate novel neural mechanisms that may support these neurocognitive abnormalities, the present study applied a graph analysis to resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected from a national sample of 4,781 youth, ages 9-10, who participated in the baseline session of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study (ABCD Study®). Analyses were then conducted to examine the relationships among levels of CD symptomatology, metrics of global topology, node-level metrics for subcortical structures, and performance on neurocognitive assessments. Youth higher on CD displayed higher global clustering (ß = .039, 95% CIcorrected [.0027 .0771]), but lower Degreesubcortical (ß = -.052, 95% CIcorrected [-.0916 -.0152]). Youth higher on CD had worse performance on a general neurocognitive assessment (ß = -.104, 95% CI [-.1328 -.0763]) and an emotion recognition memory assessment (ß = -.061, 95% CI [-.0919 -.0290]). Finally, global clustering mediated the relationship between CD and general neurocognitive functioning (indirect ß = -.002, 95% CI [-.0044 -.0002]), and Degreesubcortical mediated the relationship between CD and emotion recognition memory performance (indirect ß = -.002, 95% CI [-.0046 -.0005]). CD appears associated with neuro-topological abnormalities and these abnormalities may represent neural mechanisms supporting CD-related neurocognitive disruptions.

Environmental Predictors of Within-Person Changes in Callous-Unemotional Traits among Justice-Involved Male Adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: Youth who display elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits are at risk for negative developmental outcomes. Previous studies demonstrate that environmental conditions contribute to elevated levels of CU traits, but the majority of this work focuses on a single source of environmental influence. To better understand how environmental conditions contribute to changes in CU traits during adolescence, the current study examined the time-varying relation between CU traits, parent, peer, and community conditions. METHOD: Using data from the longitudinal Pathways to Desistance study (N = 1,026 males, Mage = 15.98, SD = 1.16; 40.94% Black, 34.11% Latino, 20.66% White, 4.29% Other), full-factorial fixed effect regression models were implemented to examine how parental hostility, antisocial peers, community violence, and neighborhood disorder are individually and interactively associated with within-person changes in CU traits during adolescence (15-21 years). RESULTS: Results indicated that proximal conditions (i.e., negative parenting, antisocial peers) had more consistent associations with CU traits than distal conditions (i.e., neighborhood disorder, community violence). Affiliation with antisocial peers was not significantly related to CU traits when youth were simultaneously exposed to high community violence and low neighborhood disorder. Further, the association between CU traits and impact of living in high disordered, high violence neighborhoods was stronger for younger youth. CONCLUSION: Results indicate that the association among parents, peers, and CU trait development is more nuanced than previously suggested, such that the risk that each environmental condition poses is moderated by a youth's age and their exposure to distal conditions.

Distrust Moderates the Effect of Deviant Peer Affiliation on Increased Externalizing in Adolescents.

Deviant peer affiliation predicts externalizing behavior in adolescence, but no research explores how having negative or suspicious expectations of others (i.e., distrust) may evoke or buffer against the relationship between deviant peer affiliation and externalizing behavior. The current study used data across two timepoints to investigate the impact of deviant peer affiliation and distrust on externalizing behavior 3 years later and whether race/ethnicity moderated this relationship. The sample consisted of 611 adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Study (48% male; Mage = 15.5 years, SD = 1.6; 17% White; 34% Black; 49% Hispanic). Higher levels of distrust buffered against the influence of deviant peer affiliation on externalizing behaviors. Further, this buffering was evident in Black compared to White adolescents. Understanding externalizing behavior warrants considering the intersection between the person and their environment.

Psychopathy is associated with an exaggerated attention bottleneck: EEG and behavioral evidence from a dual-task paradigm.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder associated with a chronic disregard for the welfare of others. The attention bottleneck model of psychopathy asserts that the behavior of individuals higher on psychopathy is due to an exaggerated attention bottleneck that constrains all information processing, regardless of the information's potential goal-relevance. To date, the majority of research on the attention bottleneck model of psychopathy conceptually applied the tenets of the model but did not implement methods that directly test an exaggeration of the bottleneck in psychopathy. Accordingly, the presence of an exaggerated bottleneck, the exact expression of that bottleneck, and its potential mechanistic relevance for behavior in individuals higher on psychopathy remains untested. To address these gaps, a sample of 78 male community members, evaluated for psychopathic traits using the Self-Report Psychopathy-III scale, completed an EEG-based dual-task paradigm examining short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA; 300 ms), long SOA (1,100 ms), and single-task baseline conditions. Additionally, participants were asked about their frequency of real-world risky, impulsive, and antisocial behaviors. Psychopathy was associated with slower reaction times to second targets (T2s) presented during the dual-task conditions, relative to the baseline condition. Psychopathy also was associated with blunted P300 responses, a neural index of stimulus evaluation, across all types of T2 events. Finally, bottleneck-related interference during the short SOA events mediated the relationship between psychopathy and real-world behavior. These findings suggested that individuals higher on psychopathy exhibit an exaggerated bottleneck which produces intense and long-lasting interference, impacting all information processing and partially contributing to their maladaptive behavior.

Psychopaths fail to automatically take the perspective of others.

Psychopathic individuals display a chronic and flagrant disregard for the welfare of others through their callous and manipulative behavior. Historically, this behavior is thought to result from deficits in social-affective processing. However, we show that at least some psychopathic behaviors may be rooted in a cognitive deficit, specifically an inability to automatically take another person's perspective. Unlike prior studies that rely solely on controlled theory of mind (ToM) tasks, we employ a task that taps into automatic ToM processing. Controlled ToM processes are engaged when an individual intentionally considers the perspective of another person, whereas automatic ToM processes are engaged when an individual unintentionally represents the perspective of another person. In a sample of incarcerated offenders, we find that psychopathic individuals are equally likely to show response interference under conditions of controlled ToM, but lack a common signature of automatic ToM known as altercentric interference. We also demonstrate that the magnitude of this dysfunction in altercentric interference is correlated with real-world callous behaviors (i.e., number of assault charges). These findings suggest that psychopathic individuals have a diminished propensity to automatically think from another's perspective, which may be the cognitive root of their deficits in social functioning and moral behavior.

Influences of early-life stress on frontolimbic circuitry: Harnessing a dimensional approach to elucidate the effects of heterogeneity in stress exposure.

Early-life stress confers profound and lasting risk for developing cognitive, social, emotional, and physical health problems. The effects of stress on the developing brain contribute to this risk, with frontolimbic circuitry particularly susceptible to early experiences, possibly due to its innervation with glucocorticoid receptors and the timing of frontolimbic circuit maturation. To date, the majority of studies on stress and frontolimbic circuitry have employed a categorical approach, comparing stress-exposed versus non-stress-exposed youth. However, there is vast heterogeneity in the nature of stress exposure and in outcomes. Recent forays into understanding the psychobiological effects of stress have employed a dimensional approach focused on experiential, environmental, and temporal factors that influence the association between stress and subsequent vulnerability. This review highlights empirical findings that inform a dimensional approach to understanding the effects of stress on frontolimbic circuitry. We identify the timing, type, severity, controllability, and predictability of stress, and the degree to which a caregiver is involved, as specific features of stress that may play a substantial role in differential outcomes. We propose a framework for the effects of these features of stress on frontolimbic development that may partially determine how heterogeneity in stress exposure influences this circuitry and, ultimately, mental health.

Aggressive Realism: More Efficient Processing of Anger in Physically Aggressive Individuals.

Physically aggressive individuals' heightened tendency to decide that ambiguous faces are angry is thought to contribute to their destructive interpersonal behavior. Although this tendency is commonly attributed to bias, other cognitive processes could account for the emotion-identification patterns observed in physical aggression. Diffusion modeling is a valuable tool for parsing the contributions of several cognitive processes known to influence decision-making, including bias, drift rate (efficiency of information accumulation), and threshold separation (extent of information accumulation). In a sample of 90 incarcerated men, we applied diffusion modeling to an emotion-identification task. Physical aggression was positively associated with drift rate (i.e., more efficient information accumulation) for anger, and drift rate mediated the association between physical aggression and heightened anger identification. Physical aggression was not, however, associated with bias or threshold separation. These findings implicate processing efficiency for anger-related information as a potential mechanism driving aberrant emotion identification in physical aggression.

Psychopathic individuals exhibit but do not avoid regret during counterfactual decision making.

Psychopathy is associated with persistent antisocial behavior and a striking lack of regret for the consequences of that behavior. Although explanatory models for psychopathy have largely focused on deficits in affective responsiveness, recent work indicates that aberrant value-based decision making may also play a role. On that basis, some have suggested that psychopathic individuals may be unable to effectively use prospective simulations to update action value estimates during cost-benefit decision making. However, the specific mechanisms linking valuation, affective deficits, and maladaptive decision making in psychopathy remain unclear. Using a counterfactual decision-making paradigm, we found that individuals who scored high on a measure of psychopathy were as or more likely than individuals low on psychopathy to report negative affect in response to regret-inducing counterfactual outcomes. However, despite exhibiting intact affective regret sensitivity, they did not use prospective regret signals to guide choice behavior. In turn, diminished behavioral regret sensitivity predicted a higher number of prior incarcerations, and moderated the relationship between psychopathy and incarceration history. These findings raise the possibility that maladaptive decision making in psychopathic individuals is not a consequence of their inability to generate or experience negative emotions. Rather, antisocial behavior in psychopathy may be driven by a deficit in the generation of forward models that integrate information about rules, costs, and goals with stimulus value representations to promote adaptive behavior.

Examining Predictors of Callous Unemotional Traits Trajectories Across Adolescence Among High-Risk Males.

Among high-risk youth, those with high levels of callous unemotional (CU) traits show more severe and chronic forms of antisocial behavior. Although ecological models have linked factors across multiple domains of risk to broader antisocial behavior development, fewer studies have adopted this approach in relation to understanding the unique development of CU traits. Further, a paucity of evidence exists from studies that have examined predictors of trajectories of CU traits. In the current study using data from the Pathways to Desistance data set, we examined prospective risk factors for CU traits trajectories modeled from ages 14 to 24. The sample included male adolescents who had interacted with the justice system (N = 1,170). CU traits were assessed using the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory. Risk factors were assessed at baseline via youth self-report across multiple domains of risk (individual, parenting, and broader contextual risk). Our results demonstrated higher risk factor scores across individual characteristics (higher anxiety and more substance use), parenting (higher harshness, and lower monitoring and knowledge), and broader contextual risk (more violence exposure) for youth with a "high" and stable CU traits trajectory. Adolescents with stable "high" CU traits likely need interventions capable of addressing and changing multiple aspects of their ecology across individual-, parent-, family-, and community-level targets.

Neural correlates of substance abuse: reduced functional connectivity between areas underlying reward and cognitive control.

Substance use disorders (SUD) have been associated with dysfunction in reward processing, habit formation, and cognitive-behavioral control. Accordingly, neurocircuitry models of addiction highlight roles for nucleus accumbens, dorsal striatum, and prefrontal/anterior cingulate cortex. However, the precise nature of the disrupted interactions between these brain regions in SUD, and the psychological correlates thereof, remain unclear. Here we used magnetic resonance imaging to measure rest-state functional connectivity of three key striatal nuclei (nucleus accumbens, dorsal caudate, and dorsal putamen) in a sample of 40 adult male prison inmates (n = 22 diagnosed with SUD; n = 18 without SUD). Relative to the non-SUD group, the SUD group exhibited significantly lower functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens and a network of frontal cortical regions involved in cognitive control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and frontal operculum). There were no group differences in functional connectivity for the dorsal caudate or dorsal putamen. Moreover, the SUD group exhibited impairments in laboratory measures of cognitive-behavioral control, and individual differences in functional connectivity between nucleus accumbens and the frontal cortical regions were related to individual differences in measures of cognitive-behavioral control across groups. The strength of the relationship between functional connectivity and cognitive control did not differ between groups. These results indicate that SUD is associated with abnormal interactions between subcortical areas that process reward (nucleus accumbens) and cortical areas that govern cognitive-behavioral control.

Manifold learning uncovers nonlinear interactions between the adolescent brain and environment that predict emotional and behavioral problems.

BACKGROUND: To progress adolescent mental health research beyond our present achievements - a complex account of brain and environmental risk factors without understanding neurobiological embedding in the environment - we need methods to unveil relationships between the developing brain and real-world environmental experiences. METHODS: We investigated associations among brain function, environments, and emotional and behavioral problems using participants from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (N=2,401 female). We applied manifold learning, a promising technique for uncovering latent structure from high-dimensional biomedical data like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Specifically, we developed exogenous PHATE (E-PHATE) to model brain-environment interactions. We used E-PHATE embeddings of participants' brain activation during emotional and cognitive processing to predict individual differences in cognition and emotional and behavioral problems, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. RESULTS: E-PHATE embeddings of participants' brain activation and environments at baseline show moderate-to-large associations with total, externalizing, and internalizing problems at baseline, across several subcortical regions and large-scale cortical networks, relative to the zero-to-small effects achieved by voxel or PHATE methods. E-PHATE embeddings of the brain and environment at baseline also relate to emotional and behavioral problems two years later. These longitudinal predictions show a consistent, moderate effect in the frontoparietal and attention networks. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescent brain's embedding in the environment yields enriched insight into emotional and behavioral problems. Using E-PHATE, we demonstrate how the harmonization of cutting-edge computational methods with longstanding developmental theories advances detection and prediction of adolescent emotional and behavioral problems.

Manifold learning uncovers nonlinear interactions between the adolescent brain and environment that predict emotional and behavioral problems.

Background: To progress adolescent mental health research beyond our present achievements - a complex account of brain and environmental risk factors without understanding neurobiological embedding in the environment - we need methods to unveil relationships between the developing brain and real-world environmental experiences. Methods: We investigated associations among brain function, environments, and emotional and behavioral problems using participants from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (N=2,401 female). We applied manifold learning, a promising technique for uncovering latent structure from high-dimensional biomedical data like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Specifically, we developed exogenous PHATE (E-PHATE) to model brain-environment interactions. We used E-PHATE embeddings of participants' brain activation during emotional and cognitive processing to predict individual differences in cognition and emotional and behavioral problems, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Results: E-PHATE embeddings of participants' brain activation and environments at baseline show moderate-to-large associations with total, externalizing, and internalizing problems at baseline, across several subcortical regions and large-scale cortical networks, relative to the zero-to-small effects achieved by voxel or PHATE methods. E-PHATE embeddings of the brain and environment at baseline also relate to emotional and behavioral problems two years later. These longitudinal predictions show a consistent, moderate effect in the frontoparietal and attention networks. Conclusions: Adolescent brain's embedding in the environment yields enriched insight into emotional and behavioral problems. Using E-PHATE, we demonstrate how the harmonization of cutting-edge computational methods with longstanding developmental theories advances detection and prediction of adolescent emotional and behavioral problems.

An 'embedded brain' approach to understanding antisocial behaviour.

Antisocial behaviour (ASB) incurs substantial costs to the individual and society. Cognitive neuroscience has the potential to shed light on developmental risk for ASB, but it cannot achieve this potential in an 'essentialist' framework that focuses on the brain and cognition isolated from the environment. Here, we present the case for studying the social transactional and iterative unfolding of brain and cognitive development in a relational context. This approach, which we call the study of the 'embedded brain', is needed to fully understand how risk for ASB arises during development. Concentrated efforts are required to develop and unify methods to achieve this approach and reap the benefits for improved prevention and intervention of ASB.