Brain structural co-development is associated with internalizing symptoms two years later in the ABCD cohort

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Child Psychiatry

Background:

• Approximately one-third of adolescents engage in over four hours of daily screen media activity (SMA).
• Understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of SMA's impact on youth mental health is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between SMA, brain development patterns, and internalizing problems in adolescents.
• To explore potential mediation effects of brain structure changes on the association between SMA and psychopathology.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal structural brain imaging data from 5,166 adolescents (ages 9-10 at baseline) were analyzed.
• Joint and Individual Variation Explained (JIVE) identified a brain co-development pattern across 221 features.
• Generalized linear mixed-effect models assessed associations between SMA, brain patterns, and internalizing/externalizing psychopathology.

Main Results:

• Higher baseline SMA predicted increased internalizing psychopathology two years later.
• A significant brain co-development pattern involving the brainstem and frontal, parietal, and temporal regions was identified.
• This brain co-development pattern partially mediated the link between SMA and internalizing problems (indirect effect = 0.020, P=0.043).

Conclusions:

• Adolescent screen time is associated with later internalizing behaviors, mediated by changes in cortical-brainstem circuitry.
• While effect sizes are small, these findings contribute to understanding risk factors for internalizing problems.
• Identifying these neurodevelopmental pathways may aid in early identification of at-risk youth.