Does pubertal stage mediate the association between family environment and structure and function of the amygdala-mPFC circuit? A replication study of the longitudinal ABCD cohort

Mediating effect of pubertal stages on the family environment and neurodevelopment: An open-data replication and multiverse analysis of an ABCD Study®

“…In our replication we compared uncorrected significance values with the uncorrected values in Thijssen et al (2020) . Recently, using the second release of the ABCD study data, the original team conducted a replication of their study ( Thijssen et al, 2020 ) and found some of their conclusions changed ( Thijssen et al, 2022 ). Specifically, they reported that in the new data the mediating effect of parent reported pubertal development on the association between family environment and ACC CT and Left Amyg-CON were significant.…”

“…To date, investigations using the ABCD study data have drawn upon different measures of the family environment and puberty when studying neurodevelopment. For instance, studies focused on neurodevelopment have used latent factors of the family environment ( Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ), bio-psycho-social ecologies ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ), neighborhood and family income/stress ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; Ip et al, 2022 ; Sripada et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ) and material deprivation/threat/social support ( DeJoseph et al, 2022 ; Petrican et al, 2021 ), or individual scales of family-to-needs ratios ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ; Rakesh et al, 2021), poverty levels ( Ellwood-Lowe et al, 2021 ), parental education ( Rakesh et al, 2021a , b ), area deprivation indices (Rakesh et al, 2021; Rakesh et al, 2021) and parental acceptance (Rakesh et al, 2021). As for measures of pubertal development (see reviews regarding measures and correspondence of pubertal scales: Cheng et al (2021) and Herting et al (2021) ), published works using ABCD data have used parent-reported pubertal development ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; McNeilly et al, 2021 ; Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ) or youth/parent reported averages of pubertal development ( Petrican et al, 2021 ).…”

“…For instance, studies focused on neurodevelopment have used latent factors of the family environment ( Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ), bio-psycho-social ecologies ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ), neighborhood and family income/stress ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; Ip et al, 2022 ; Sripada et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ) and material deprivation/threat/social support ( DeJoseph et al, 2022 ; Petrican et al, 2021 ), or individual scales of family-to-needs ratios ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ; Rakesh et al, 2021), poverty levels ( Ellwood-Lowe et al, 2021 ), parental education ( Rakesh et al, 2021a , b ), area deprivation indices (Rakesh et al, 2021; Rakesh et al, 2021) and parental acceptance (Rakesh et al, 2021). As for measures of pubertal development (see reviews regarding measures and correspondence of pubertal scales: Cheng et al (2021) and Herting et al (2021) ), published works using ABCD data have used parent-reported pubertal development ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; McNeilly et al, 2021 ; Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ) or youth/parent reported averages of pubertal development ( Petrican et al, 2021 ). Given variations in the analytic choices regarding measures of the family environment and puberty, the overall goal of the current analysis is to use a multiverse approach to understand the nuanced associations among stressful family environmental experiences, puberty and neurodevelopment when using broad measures (i.e., latent factors) that are comprised of multiple scales as well as specific measures (i.e., individual scales) that are based on individual scales.…”

Childhood trauma, earlier pubertal timing, and psychopathology in adolescence: The role of corticolimbic development

“…For instance, original studies that found a shift from positive to negative connectivity used the contrast of fearful faces relative to implicit baseline ( Gee et al, 2013 ), rather than a contrast that specifically isolated responses to fearful affect (i.e., neutral or scrambled faces). Similarly, there is evidence to suggest accelerated pubertal development is associated with a more mature pattern of amygdala-cingulate functional connectivity at rest ( Thijssen et al, 2020 , Thijssen et al, 2022 ). Further work is necessary to disentangle the impact of task and analysis decisions on discrepant results across the literature ( Bloom et al, 2021 , Demidenko et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Building on this work, some evidence suggests that ELA may accelerate this pattern of development, resulting in an earlier emergence of a negative amygdala-mPFC pattern of connectivity ( Callaghan and Tottenham, 2016 , Colich et al, 2017 , Gee et al, 2013 , Keding and Herringa, 2016 , Peverill et al, 2019 ). Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that pubertal development may mediate the association between adverse experiences in the home and amygdala-cingular-opercular network connectivity at rest ( Demidenko et al, 2022 , Thijssen et al, 2020 , Thijssen et al, 2022 ). However, this finding has not emerged consistently across studies (see Colich et al, 2020 for a review), perhaps in part because the development shift of amygdala-mPFC connectivity is not a reliable marker of maturation ( Bloom et al, 2021 ).…”