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Browsing by Author "Steinberg, Laurence"

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    Brain Similarity as a Protective Factor in the Longitudinal Pathway Linking Household Chaos, Parenting, and Substance Use
    Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen; Lee, Tae-Ho; Clinchard, Claudia; Lindenmuth, Morgan; Brieant, Alexis; Steinberg, Laurence; Deater-Deckard, Kirby; Casas, Brooks (Elsevier, 2023-04-29)
    Background: Socioecological factors such as family environment and parenting behaviors contribute to the development of substance use. While biobehavioral synchrony has been suggested as the foundation for resilience that can modulate environmental effects on development, the role of brain similarity that attenuates deleterious effects of environmental contexts has not been clearly understood. We tested whether parent-adolescent neural similarity—the level of pattern similarity between parent-adolescent functional brain connectivity representing the level of attunement within each dyad—moderates the longitudinal pathways in which household chaos (a stressor) predicts adolescent substance use directly and indirectly via parental monitoring. Methods: In a sample of 70 parent-adolescent dyads, similarity in resting-state brain activity was identified using multipattern connectivity similarity estimation. Adolescents and parents reported on household chaos and parental monitoring, and adolescent substance use was assessed at a 1-year follow-up. Results: The moderated mediation model indicated that for adolescents with low neural similarity, but not high neural similarity, greater household chaos predicted higher substance use over time directly and indirectly via lower parental monitoring. Our data also indicated differential susceptibility in the overall association between household chaos and substance use: Adolescents with low neural similarity exhibited high substance use under high household chaos but low substance use under low household chaos. Conclusions: Neural similarity acts as a protective factor such that the detrimental effects of suboptimal family environment and parenting behaviors on the development of adolescent health risk behaviors may be attenuated by neural similarity within parent-adolescent bonds.
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    Longitudinal link between trait motivation and risk-taking behaviors via neural risk processing
    Li, Mengjiao; Lauharatanahirun, Nina; Steinberg, Laurence; Casas, Brooks; Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen; Deater-Deckard, Kirby (2019-12)
    Prior research has emphasized the importance of the motivational system in risky decision-making, yet the mechanisms through which individual differences in motivation may influence adolescents' risk-taking behaviors remain to be determined. Based on developmental neuroscience literature illustrating the importance of risk processing in explaining individual differences in value-based decision making, we examined risk processing as a potential mediator of the association between trait motivations and adolescents' risk-taking behaviors. The sample consisted of 167 adolescents (47% females) annually assessed for three years (13-14 years of age at Time 1). Approach and avoidance motivations were measured using adolescent self-report. Risk preference was estimated based on adolescents' decisions during a modified economic lottery choice task with neural risk processing being measured by blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses in the bilateral insular cortex for chosen options. Adolescents' risk-taking behaviors were assessed by laboratory-based risky decision making using the Stoplight task. Longitudinal mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of approach motivation, such that higher motivation was correlated with increases in risk-taking behaviors via decreases in neural activation in the bilateral insular cortex during risk processing. The findings illustrate a neural pathway through which approach motivation is translated into the vulnerability to risk taking development.