Chair: Dr. Susan Tapert (University of California, San Diego)

Speakers: Dr. Deanna Barch (Washington University in St. Louis), Dr. Lucina Uddin (University of California, Los Angeles), Dr. Brenden Tervo-Clemmens (University of Minnesota)

Moderator: Dr. Hugh Garavan (University of Vermont)

To start off, we’d love to hear a bit about your path into developmental cognitive neuroscience. What first sparked your interest in the field? Were there any key moments that shaped your path?

As an undergraduate, I was fascinated by how addiction can strongly influence people’s behaviors. As a postdoc, I learned how to conduct neuroimaging studies and analyze the data, which allowed me to apply those skills to my interest in addiction. Early work with neuroimaging in young people with substance use disorders showed me how much we could learn by studying the brain in real time during critical developmental windows.

How would you describe your research to someone without a scientific background?

I study how the brain grows and changes from childhood into adulthood, and how substance use, mental health, and other life experiences can shape that development. The goal is to identify early markers of risk and resilience so we can promote healthier outcomes.

In your view, what are some of the most pressing or exciting challenges in developmental cognitive neuroscience today? 

A key challenge is integrating large, diverse datasets to capture the full complexity of brain, behavior, and environment across time. We also need better methods to translate research findings into interventions and policy that meaningfully benefit young people.

You’ll be chairing the symposium “Beyond Adolescence: 10 Years of ABCD and the next Critical Phase of Brain and Health Development Research” at Flux this year. What can attendees expect from this session?

Attendees will hear from leading scientists on what ABCD has taught us in its first decade, spanning mental health, brain connectivity, cognitive control, and motivation, and where we are headed as participants enter young adulthood. The discussion will highlight research priorities, innovative data collection strategies, how to maximize the predictive power of ABCD data, and what the user community would like to ensure ABCD does as the cohort develops into emerging adulthood.

What do you see as the most important insights that the ABCD study has delivered in its first decade? 

So far, ABCD has shown how brain development unfolds in a very diverse cohort through adolescence, clarified early predictors of mental health and substance use outcomes, and demonstrated the value of harmonized open science approaches in accelerating discovery.

As the ABCD cohort enters young adulthood, new opportunities are emerging to characterize developmental trajectories in relation to mental health, cognition, and brain function. What excites you most about this next phase of research? What challenges should we be mindful of when assessing this cohort in early adulthood?

We now have a rare opportunity to track the same individuals as they transition into young adulthood, a period when serious psychiatric disorders can emerge, and when educational, occupational, and health trajectories often become set. This phase will be pivotal for identifying modifiable factors that promote resilience and healthy outcomes.

Key challenges include maintaining participant engagement and adapting measures for emerging adult life roles will be critical. We also face the challenge of capturing rapidly changing digital, social, and environmental contexts.

How can findings from ABCD and similar large-scale studies influence public health and education?

ABCD’s large-scale, longitudinal data can inform policies on youth mental health, substance use prevention, education, and health promotion by identifying when and where interventions can have the most impact. We are moving closer to actionable, evidence-based recommendations for schools, health systems, and policymakers, and information for individuals to make science-based decisions in their own lives.