The Adolescent Neural Urbanome and Pubertal Development in the ABCD Study ®

The TEEN Lab conducts interdisciplinary research to understand how the brain, behavior, and biological processes interact across childhood and adolescence. By integrating developmental neuroscience, clinical psychology, physiological assessments, and emerging technologies, our research investigates the complex biological, cognitive, and emotional processes that shape development.

Because no single research method can fully explain how young people learn, respond to rewards and stress, regulate emotions, or develop vulnerability or resilience to mental health challenges, we adopt a multimodal and interdisciplinary research approach. Our studies integrate electroencephalography (EEG), event-related potentials (ERPs), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), behavioral experiments, computational approaches, and hormonal assessments to investigate adolescent development from multiple perspectives.

Together, these complementary methods allow us to examine development across multiple levels of analysis—from rapid neural activity occurring within milliseconds and functional interactions among brain regions to observable behavior, learning processes, and developmental changes in hormonal activity. Through this integrative approach, we aim to advance our understanding of the neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms underlying healthy development, individual differences, and vulnerability and resilience to mental health challenges.

1.What Are EEG and ERP? 

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a safe, noninvasive method for measuring the brain’s electrical activity. Participants wear a cap containing small sensors called electrodes, which detect tiny electrical signals produced by groups of neurons. EEG has excellent temporal resolution, allowing researchers to track changes in brain activity within milliseconds. This makes EEG especially useful for studying how the brain responds and changes over time during processes such as attention, learning, emotion, and sleep. 

An event-related potential (ERP) is not a separate brain-imaging technique. Rather, ERPs are specific patterns of brain activity extracted from the continuous EEG signal and time-locked to an event, such as seeing a picture, making a choice, or receiving reward feedback. By averaging EEG activity across many similar trials, researchers can identify characteristic ERP components associated with particular cognitive or emotional processes. 

To investigate EEG activity relevant to cognitive processes (i.e., ERPs), participants may complete computer-based tasks while we continuously record their EEG. For example, a child or adolescent may make choices and then receive reward or loss feedback. Then, scientists can examine how the brain responds as these events unfold. 

2. What Is fMRI? 

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a noninvasive neuroimaging method that allows researchers to examine WHERE neural activity occurs in the brain. Unlike EEG, fMRI does not directly measure electrical activity. Instead, it measures changes in blood oxygenation—the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal—that accompany changes in neural activity. 

During an fMRI study, participants lie inside an MRI scanner while completing tasks involving processes such as reward learning, decision-making, attention, or emotion regulation. Researchers can then determine which brain regions and networks are more strongly engaged during different psychological processes.

For example, TEEN Lab research may investigate activity within brain systems involved in reward-based decision making, including the striatum, as well as regions of the prefrontal cortex involved in cognitive control and emotion regulation.  

3. Why Does TEEN Lab Use Multiple Methods? 

Child and adolescent development are influenced by interactions among the brain, behavior, learning, hormones, and environment. Our goal is therefore not simply to identify whether one brain region is "more active" or whether one ERP is larger. We want to understand the mechanisms through which biological and neural development influence how young people learn, feel, and behave. 

Childhood and adolescence are periods of extraordinary brain development, but they are also periods during which vulnerability to many mental-health problems begin to emerge. 

At the TEEN Lab, we aim to understand WHY developmental pathways differ across young people. Rather than studying symptoms alone, we investigate the underlying neural, biological, and behavioral mechanisms that may contribute to healthy development or vulnerability to mental-health difficulties. 

By integrating EEG/ERP, fMRI, behavioral experiments, computational modeling, and hormonal measures, our research seeks to identify developmental mechanisms that cannot be understood using any single method. 

Ultimately, this multimodal approach may help scientists identify developmentally sensitive markers of risk and resilience, improve our understanding of when and how mental-health difficulties emerge, and provide a stronger scientific foundation for developing more precise approaches to prevention and intervention for children and adolescents.