TY - JOUR
T1 - Associations between adolescent cannabis use frequency and adult brain structure
T2 - A prospective study of boys followed to adulthood
AU - Meier, Madeline H.
AU - Schriber, Roberta A.
AU - Beardslee, Jordan
AU - Hanson, J.
AU - Pardini, Dustin
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript preparation and data collection were supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse ( DA411018 , DA034608 ), National Institute of Mental Health ( MH48890 , MH50778 , MH078039 ), Pew Charitable Trusts , the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention ( 96-MU-FX-0012 ), and the Pennsylvania Department of Health .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019
PY - 2019/9/1
Y1 - 2019/9/1
N2 - Background: Few studies have tested the hypothesis that adolescent cannabis users show structural brain alterations in adulthood. The present study tested associations between prospectively-assessed trajectories of adolescent cannabis use and adult brain structure in a sample of boys followed to adulthood. Methods: Data came from the Pittsburgh Youth Study – a longitudinal study of ˜1000 boys. Boys completed self-reports of cannabis use annually from age 13–19, and latent class growth analysis was used to identify different trajectories of adolescent cannabis use. Once adolescent cannabis trajectories were identified, boys were classified into their most likely cannabis trajectory. A subset of boys (n = 181) subsequently underwent structural neuroimaging in adulthood, when they were between 30–36 years old on average. For this subset, we grouped participants according to their classified adolescent cannabis trajectory and tested whether these groups showed differences in adult brain structure in 14 a priori regions of interest, including six subcortical (volume only: amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, caudate, putamen, and pallidum) and eight cortical regions (volume and thickness: superior frontal gyrus; caudal and rostral middle frontal gyrus; inferior frontal gyrus, separated into pars opercularis, pars triangularis, and pars orbitalis; lateral and medial orbitofrontal gyrus). Results: We identified four adolescent cannabis trajectories: non-users/infrequent users, desisters, escalators, and chronic-relatively frequent users. Boys in different trajectory subgroups did not differ on adult brain structure in any subcortical or cortical region of interest. Conclusions: Adolescent cannabis use is not associated with structural brain differences in adulthood.
AB - Background: Few studies have tested the hypothesis that adolescent cannabis users show structural brain alterations in adulthood. The present study tested associations between prospectively-assessed trajectories of adolescent cannabis use and adult brain structure in a sample of boys followed to adulthood. Methods: Data came from the Pittsburgh Youth Study – a longitudinal study of ˜1000 boys. Boys completed self-reports of cannabis use annually from age 13–19, and latent class growth analysis was used to identify different trajectories of adolescent cannabis use. Once adolescent cannabis trajectories were identified, boys were classified into their most likely cannabis trajectory. A subset of boys (n = 181) subsequently underwent structural neuroimaging in adulthood, when they were between 30–36 years old on average. For this subset, we grouped participants according to their classified adolescent cannabis trajectory and tested whether these groups showed differences in adult brain structure in 14 a priori regions of interest, including six subcortical (volume only: amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, caudate, putamen, and pallidum) and eight cortical regions (volume and thickness: superior frontal gyrus; caudal and rostral middle frontal gyrus; inferior frontal gyrus, separated into pars opercularis, pars triangularis, and pars orbitalis; lateral and medial orbitofrontal gyrus). Results: We identified four adolescent cannabis trajectories: non-users/infrequent users, desisters, escalators, and chronic-relatively frequent users. Boys in different trajectory subgroups did not differ on adult brain structure in any subcortical or cortical region of interest. Conclusions: Adolescent cannabis use is not associated with structural brain differences in adulthood.
KW - Adolescent
KW - Brain structure
KW - Cannabis
KW - Magnetic resonance imaging
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069650846&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85069650846&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.05.012
DO - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.05.012
M3 - Article
C2 - 31357120
AN - SCOPUS:85069650846
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 202
SP - 191
EP - 199
JO - Drug and alcohol dependence
JF - Drug and alcohol dependence
ER -