Early results from a special research program designed to track the brain development and health of American children were released, revealing the first look at a database of both valuable and, in many ways, mismatched -willing.
The Adolescent Cognitive Brain Development Study (ABCD) is the largest long-term study of its kind in the United States, involving nearly 11,700 healthy children between the ages of nine and ten who are being studied at more than 20 sites research across the country.
At the beginning of the ABCD Study, this large group of demographically diverse children was scanned with high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices.
This was to provide a baseline measurement of the developing brains, which will be repeated at two-year intervals during a 10-year longitudinal study – helping scientists to understand how children’s brain development may be linked to a wide range of factors. , from sleep levels to sports, substance use, time spent playing video games, academic results, and much more.
But even before researchers can begin to figure out what connections and associations might lie for the ABCD cohort, they have these basic dimensions of their brains, built between 2016 and 2018, already offers new perspectives on brain health – and by extension, that’s America. children as a whole, since the cohort was selected to reflect the general sociodemographic diversity of the U.S. population.
In a new study of the results led by first author and neuroradiologist Yi Li from UC San Francisco (UCSF), researchers used the database to measure levels of what are termed ‘incidental results’ (IFs ) to measure.
In this context, IFs are an unexpected brain anomaly detected during the imaging process, from healthy and abnormal anatomical changes in brain structures to true anomalies such as cysts and tumors which may require emergency medical intervention.
Within the ABCD group, approximately 3.9 percent of the scans – representing nearly one in 25 children – showed IFs where a noninvasive or non-emergency clinical report was recommended, the researchers found, but about 21 percent of children overall have some form of IF.
Detecting clinically significant brain dysfunctions in nearly 4 percent of a sample taken to represent the general U.S. population feels intimidating, but important note that only about one in 500 children exhibited dyslexia that was severe enough to be seen as a potentially life-threatening condition, for which a clinical recommendation was made. immediate recommendation.
Going forward, the ABCD Study will provide an unprecedented opportunity to continuously monitor the brain and physical health and development of these children, as well as monitor the IFs found to date. .
“The study is unique in terms of size, participant diversity, and standardization of protocols,” the authors write. “To our knowledge, a speculative study of this size and range has never been conducted in this area.”
Perhaps, importantly, the cohort is now entering adolescents, the stage of life where their brains develop significantly and sometimes adversely changes, with many teenagers experiencing mental health problems such as they will age.
“Brain changes during this period are suspected to increase the risk for disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, attention disorder / intolerance, and addiction,” says Leo Sugrue, senior author and neuroradiologist UCSF, explains.
“To date, our understanding of these relationships has been limited by a lack of high-quality data of length, a gap that the ABCD Study aims to fill.”
While many of the decisions are years in the future, for some of these young people and their families, the involvement with this innovative research has already paid off in ways that would not. they can have thought.
The case of one boy in particular – with his brain scans revealing a brain tumor that was eventually successfully removed – predicts just how important this science is.
As his mother later said: “I am forever grateful because his participation in this study may have saved his life.”
The results are reported in Neurology JAMA.