School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, VIC, Australia.
Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, VIC, Australia.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2023 Apr;60:101227. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101227. Epub 2023 Mar 9.
Our understanding of the mechanisms relating pubertal timing to mental health problems via brain development remains rudimentary.
Longitudinal data was sourced from ∼11,500 children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (age 9-13years). We built models of "brain age" and "puberty age" as indices of brain and pubertal development. Residuals from these models were used to index individual differences in brain development and pubertal timing, respectively. Mixed-effects models were used to investigate associations between pubertal timing and regional and global brain development. Mediation models were used to investigate the indirect effect of pubertal timing on mental health problems via brain development.
Earlier pubertal timing was associated with accelerated brain development, particularly of subcortical and frontal regions in females and subcortical regions in males. While earlier pubertal timing was associated with elevated mental health problems in both sexes, brain age did not predict mental health problems, nor did it mediate associations between pubertal timing and mental health problems.
This study highlights the importance of pubertal timing as a marker associated with brain maturation and mental health problems.
我们对于青春期启动与精神健康问题之间通过大脑发育相关联的机制的理解仍然很初级。
来自青少年大脑认知发展研究（ABCD 研究）（年龄 9-13 岁）的约 11500 名儿童的纵向数据被作为资料来源。我们构建了“大脑年龄”和“青春期年龄”的模型，作为大脑和青春期发育的指标。这些模型的残差被分别用来作为个体大脑发育和青春期启动差异的指标。混合效应模型被用于调查青春期启动与区域性和全脑性大脑发育之间的关联。中介模型被用于调查青春期启动通过大脑发育对精神健康问题的间接影响。
更早的青春期启动与大脑发育加速相关，尤其是在女性的皮质下和额叶区域以及男性的皮质下区域。尽管更早的青春期启动与两性的精神健康问题升高有关，但大脑年龄并不能预测精神健康问题，也不能作为青春期启动与精神健康问题之间的关联的中介。
本研究强调了青春期启动作为与大脑成熟和精神健康问题相关的标记物的重要性。
