Hyperbolic discounting rates and risk for problematic alcohol use in youth enrolled in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study

Genetic Propensity for Delay Discounting and Educational Attainment in Adults Are Associated With Delay Discounting in Preadolescents: Findings From the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study

Higher delay discounting (DD) (i.e., propensity to devalue larger, delayed rewards over immediate, smaller rewards) is a transdiagnostic marker underpinning multiple health behaviors. Although genetic influences account for some of the variability in DD among adults, less is known about the genetic contributors to DD among preadolescents. We examined whether polygenic scores (PGS) for DD, educational attainment, and behavioral traits (i.e., impulsivity, inhibition, and externalizing behavior) were associated with phenotypic DD among preadolescents. Participants included youth (N = 8982, 53% male) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study who completed an Adjusting Delay Discounting Task at the 1-year follow-up and had valid genetic data. PGS for DD, educational attainment, impulsivity, inhibition, and externalizing behaviors were created based on the largest GWAS available. Separate linear mixed effects models were conducted in individuals most genetically similar to European (EUR; n = 4972), African (AFR; n = 1769), and Admixed American (AMR; n = 2241) reference panels. After adjusting for age, sex, income, and the top ten genetic ancestry principal components, greater PGS for DD and lower educational attainment (but not impulsivity, inhibition, or externalizing) were associated with higher rates of DD (i.e., preference for sooner, smaller rewards) in participants most genetically similar to EUR reference panels. Findings provide insight into the influence of genetic propensity for DD and educational attainment on the discounting tendencies of preadolescents, particularly those most genetically similar to European reference samples, thereby advancing our understanding of the etiology of choice behaviors in this population.

Delay discounting and nucleus accumbens functional connectivity are related to weight status in adolescents from the ABCD study

BACKGROUND

Despite the growing epidemic of paediatric obesity, questions remain regarding potential neural mechanisms for individual risk. Delay discounting is a cognitive process of comparison of valuation between immediate and delayed reward, which has been inconsistently linked to weight status. Moreover, central to the brain's reward system is the nucleus accumbens, a region structurally and functionally altered in obesity.

OBJECTIVES/METHODS

This study aimed to examine the relationships between two continuous metrics of weight status, performance on a monetary delay-discounting task and nucleus accumbens functional connectivity in 10-12-year-olds from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.

RESULTS

Using multilevel longitudinal linear modelling, we found greater discounting was associated with higher BMI Z-scores (BMIz) and waist-to-height ratio Z-scores (WHtRz) (N = 3819). Moreover, we observed functional connectivity of the nucleus accumbens to the cingulo-opercular, dorsal attention, fronto-parietal, salience and ventral attention networks were predictive of BMIz (N = 1817). Nucleus accumbens functional connectivity was not found to mediate the association between delay-discounting behaviour and BMIz.

CONCLUSIONS

Delay discounting and nucleus accumbens functional connectivity are independently related to weight status in a large sample of early adolescents. A better understanding of the relationship between reward and overeating behaviours may better inform obesity interventions.

Associations between polygenic scores for cognitive and non-cognitive factors of educational attainment and measures of behavior, psychopathology, and neuroimaging in the adolescent brain cognitive development study

BACKGROUND

Educational attainment (EduA) is correlated with life outcomes, and EduA itself is influenced by both cognitive and non-cognitive factors. A recent study performed a 'genome-wide association study (GWAS) by subtraction,' subtracting genetic effects for cognitive performance from an educational attainment GWAS to create orthogonal 'cognitive' and 'non-cognitive' factors. These cognitive and non-cognitive factors showed associations with behavioral health outcomes in adults; however, whether these correlations are present during childhood is unclear.

METHODS

Using data from up to 5517 youth (ages 9-11) of European ancestry from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study, we examined associations between polygenic scores (PGS) for cognitive and non-cognitive factors and cognition, risk tolerance, decision-making & personality, substance initiation, psychopathology, and brain structure (e.g. volume, fractional anisotropy [FA]). Within-sibling analyses estimated whether observed genetic associations may be consistent with direct genetic effects.

RESULTS

Both PGSs were associated with greater cognition and lower impulsivity, drive, and severity of psychotic-like experiences. The cognitive PGS was also associated with greater risk tolerance, increased odds of choosing delayed reward, and decreased likelihood of ADHD and bipolar disorder; the non-cognitive PGS was associated with lack of perseverance and reward responsiveness. Cognitive PGS were more strongly associated with larger regional cortical volumes; non-cognitive PGS were more strongly associated with higher FA. All associations were characterized by small effects.

CONCLUSIONS

While the small sizes of these associations suggest that they are not effective for prediction within individuals, cognitive and non-cognitive PGS show unique associations with phenotypes in childhood at the population level.

The ABCD and HBCD Studies: Longitudinal Studies to Inform Prevention Science

Increasing rates of overdose among U.S. adolescents and young adults, along with rising rates of emotional distress in these groups, are renewing the urgency for developmentally targeted and personalized substance use and other mental health prevention interventions. Most prevention programs recognize the unique vulnerability of childhood and adolescence and target parents and youths, addressing modifiable environmental risk and protective factors that affect behavior during periods when the brain is most susceptible to change. Until recently, a scarcity of comprehensive studies has limited a full understanding of the complexity of factors that may affect neurodevelopment, including substance exposure in pregnancy and/or subsequent substance use in adolescence, alongside their dynamic interactions with environmental factors and genetics. Two large longitudinal cohort studies funded by National Institutes of Health-the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study-are collecting data on neurodevelopment and a wide range of environmental and biological factors across the first two decades of life to build databases that will allow researchers to study how individual neurodevelopmental trajectories are influenced by drugs, adverse childhood experiences, and genetics, among other factors. These studies are already deepening the understanding of risk and resilience factors that prevention programs could target and will identify critical windows where interventions can have the most impact on an individual's neurodevelopmental trajectory. This article describes what is being learned from ABCD and expected from HBCD and how these studies might inform prevention as these children grow and more data are gathered.

Longitudinal tracking of alcohol expectancies and their associations with impulsivity in alcohol naïve youth in the adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD) study

Background

Positive and negative alcohol expectancies (PAEs and NAEs, respectively) and impulsivity are key risk factors for the onset of alcohol use. While both factors independently contribute to alcohol initiation, the developmental aspects of AEs and their nuanced relationship with impulsivity are not adequately understood. Understanding these relationships is imperative for developing targeted interventions to prevent or delay alcohol use onset in youth.

Methods

This study utilized the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development cohort to examine how PAEs and NAEs develop over time and relate to each other. We also explored how self-reported and behavioral impulsivity at baseline (~10 years old) are associated with the longitudinal development of PAEs and NAEs in youth Ages 11, 12, and 13 (n = 7493; 7500; and 6981, respectively), as well as their time-specific relationships.

Results

Findings revealed while PAEs increased steadily over all three years, NAEs increased from ages 11-12 and then remained unchanged between 12 and 13. Overall, PAEs and NAEs were inversely related. Moreover, PAEs positively correlated with sensation seeking and lack of premeditation, while NAEs negatively correlated with positive urgency. Interestingly, a time-specific association was observed with PAEs and lack of perseverance, with a stronger correlation to PAEs at Age 11 compared to Age 12.

Conclusions

Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the divergent developmental trajectory of PAEs and NAEs, and their overall and time-specific associations with impulsivity. These findings may guide focused and time-sensitive prevention and intervention initiatives, aiming to modify AEs and reduce underage drinking.

Associations between behavioral and self-reported impulsivity, brain structure, and genetic influences in middle childhood

Impulsivity undergoes a normative developmental trajectory from childhood to adulthood and is thought to be driven by maturation of brain structure. However, few large-scale studies have assessed associations between impulsivity, brain structure, and genetic susceptibility in children. In 9112 children ages 9-10 from the ABCD study, we explored relationships among impulsivity (UPPS-P impulsive behavior scale; delay discounting), brain structure (cortical thickness (CT), cortical volume (CV), and cortical area (CA)), and polygenic scores for externalizing behavior (PGSEXT). Both higher UPPS-P total scores and more severe delay-discounting had widespread, low-magnitude associations with smaller CA in frontal and temporal regions. No associations were seen between impulsivity and CV or CT. Additionally, higher PGSEXT was associated with both higher UPPS-P scores and with smaller CA and CV in frontal and temporal regions, but in non-overlapping cortical regions, underscoring the complex interplay between genetics and brain structure in influencing impulsivity. These findings indicate that, within large-scale population data, CA is significantly yet weakly associated with each of these impulsivity measures and with polygenic risk for externalizing behaviors, but in distinct brain regions. Future work should longitudinally assess these associations through adolescence, and examine associated functional outcomes, such as future substance use and psychopathology.

Delay discounting and family history of psychopathology in children ages 9-11

Delay discounting is a tendency to devalue delayed rewards compared to immediate rewards. Evidence suggests that steeper delay discounting is associated with psychiatric disorders across diagnostic categories, but it is unclear whether steeper delay discounting is a risk factor for these disorders. We examined whether children at higher risk for psychiatric disorders, based on family history, would demonstrate steeper delay discounting behavior using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a nationally representative sample of 11,878 children. We looked at associations between delay discounting behavior and family history of alcohol problems, drug problems, depression, mania, schizophrenia, and suicidal behavior. Correlations between family history of psychopathology and delay discounting behavior were small, ranging from ρ = - 0.02 to 0.04. In mixed effects models controlled for sociodemographic factors, family history of psychopathology was not associated with steeper delay discounting behavior. Sociodemographic factors played a larger role in predicting delay discounting behavior than family history of psychopathology. These results do not support the hypothesis that children with greater risk for psychopathology display steeper delay discounting behavior.

Associations Between Polygenic Scores for Cognitive and Non-cognitive Factors of Educational Attainment and Measures of Behavior, Psychopathology, and Neuroimaging in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study

Background

Both cognitive and non-cognitive (e.g., traits like curiosity) factors are critical for social and emotional functioning and independently predict educational attainment. These factors are heritable and genetically correlated with a range of health-relevant traits and behaviors in adulthood (e.g., risk-taking, psychopathology). However, whether these associations are present during adolescence, and to what extent these relationships diverge, could have implications for adolescent health and well-being.

Methods

Using data from 5,517 youth of European ancestry from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study, we examined associations between polygenic scores (PGS) for cognitive and non-cognitive factors and outcomes related to cognition, socioeconomic status, risk tolerance and decision-making, substance initiation, psychopathology, and brain structure.

Results

Cognitive and non-cognitive PGSs were both positively associated with cognitive performance and family income, and negatively associated with ADHD and severity of psychotic-like experiences. The cognitive PGS was also associated with greater risk-taking, delayed discounting, and anorexia, as well as lower likelihood of nicotine initiation. The cognitive PGS was further associated with cognition scores and anorexia in within-sibling analyses, suggesting these results do not solely reflect the effects of assortative mating or passive gene-environment correlations. The cognitive PGS showed significantly stronger associations with cortical volumes than the non-cognitive PGS and was associated with right hemisphere caudal anterior cingulate and pars-orbitalis in within-sibling analyses, while the non-cognitive PGS showed stronger associations with white matter fractional anisotropy and a significant within-sibling association for right superior corticostriate-frontal cortex.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that PGSs for cognitive and non-cognitive factors show similar associations with cognition and socioeconomic status as well as other psychosocial outcomes, but distinct associations with regional neural phenotypes in this adolescent sample.

Gender-specific resting-state rDMPFC-centric functional connectivity underpinnings of intertemporal choice

Although studies have observed gender differences in intertemporal choice, the neural bases of these differences require further research. The current study used resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) to explore the gender-specific neural basis of intertemporal choice in three independent samples (n1 = 86, n2 = 297, n3 = 172). Behaviorally, three samples (S1, S2, and S3) consistently demonstrated that men had larger delay discounting rate (log k) than women. Then, whole-brain functional connectivity analyses were performed for different genders in S2 and S3 using the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (rDMPFC) as a region of interest. By subtracting the common rsFC patterns of different genders, we identified gender-specific log k-related rsFC patterns with significant gender differences in S2. This was verified in an independent sample (S3). Specifically, in women, log k was found to be positively correlated with the rsFC between rDMPFC and anterior cingulate cortex/right orbitofrontal cortex. In contrast, in men, log k was negatively correlated with rsFC between rDMPFC and left orbitofrontal cortex/right precuneus. These gender differences were confirmed by slope tests. The findings highlight how gender may differ when engaging in intertemporal choice. They improve the understanding of gender differences in decision impulsivity and its underlying neural bases.

Delay discounting and symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescents experiencing challenges with managing type 1 diabetes

We examined if anxiety/depression, delay discounting (DD), and their interaction were associated with greater A1c levels and reduced medical adherence in adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Sixty-one adolescents with T1D completed a DD task and an A1c blood test. Adherence was assessed by self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) using glucometer data. Anxiety/depression was assessed using a parent-completed questionnaire. Greater DD was associated with higher A1c, but not SMBG. Anxiety/depression was not associated with A1c or SMBG. Greater anxiety/depression magnified the effect of DD on A1c. Anxious/depressed symptoms may be a target for youth with T1D to improve glycemic control.

Model-based experimental manipulation of probabilistic behavior in interpretable behavioral latent variable models

Introduction

Interpretable latent variable models that probabilistically link behavioral observations to an underlying latent process have increasingly been used to draw inferences on cognition from observed behavior. The latent process usually connects experimental variables to cognitive computation. While such models provide important insights into the latent processes generating behavior, one important aspect has often been overlooked. They may also be used to generate precise and falsifiable behavioral predictions as a function of the modeled experimental variables. In doing so, they pinpoint how experimental conditions must be designed to elicit desired behavior and generate adaptive experiments.

Methods

These ideas are exemplified on the process of delay discounting (DD). After inferring DD models from behavior on a typical DD task, the models are leveraged to generate a second adaptive DD task. Experimental trials in this task are designed to elicit 9 graded behavioral discounting probabilities across participants. Models are then validated and contrasted to competing models in the field by assessing the ouf-of-sample prediction error.

Results

The proposed framework induces discounting probabilities on nine levels. In contrast to several alternative models, the applied model exhibits high validity as indicated by a comparably low prediction error. We also report evidence for inter-individual differences with respect to the most suitable models underlying behavior. Finally, we outline how to adapt the proposed method to the investigation of other cognitive processes including reinforcement learning.

Discussion

Inducing graded behavioral frequencies with the proposed framework may help to highly resolve the underlying cognitive construct and associated neuronal substrates.