Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) are zeroing in on brain factors and behaviors that put teens at risk of alcohol use and abuse even before they start drinking.
Four abstracts from the Adolescent Development Study exploring these factors will be presented at Neuroscience 2014, the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in Washington. The Adolescent Development Study, a collaboration between the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and GUMC funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is a wide-ranging effort to understand how a teen brain "still under construction," as the NIH puts it, can lead to risky behaviors such as alcohol and drug use.
The project is directed by John VanMeter, PhD, director of the Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging, and associate professor of neurology at GUMC, and Diana Fishbein, PhD, director of the Center for Translational Research on Adversity, Neurodevelopment and Substance Abuse (C-TRANS) at UMSOM.
One abstract provides new evidence that adolescents at higher risk of alcoholism have reduced connections in key brain networks; another links impaired brain connections to impulsivity; and two abstracts examine impulsivity in relation to sugar intake and intake of DHA, an essential omega-3 fatty acid.
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