title: Early childhood temperament predicts substance use in young adults.
abstract: Behavioral inhibition (BI) is an important early childhood marker of risk for later psychiatric problems. The current 20-year prospective, longitudinal study focused on individual differences in this early temperament and adolescent brain function. As adolescents, 83 participants initially identified in infancy with the temperament of BI were assessed using functional imaging to examine striatal responses to incentives. Five years later, as young adults, these participants provided self-report of their substance use. Our findings show that children's early temperament interacts with their striatal sensitivity to incentives in adolescence to predict their level of substance use in young adulthood. Those young adults who, as children, showed the highest levels of BI reported the greatest substance use if, as adolescents, they also exhibited striatal hypersensitivity to incentives. These longitudinal data delineate one developmental pathway involving early biology and brain mechanisms for substance use in young adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lahat
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pérez-Edgar
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Degnan
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Guyer
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Lejuez
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ernst
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Pine
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Fox
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004423:Ear / Q000002:abnormalities; D004427:Ear Diseases; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013694:Temperament; D055815:Young Adult