# Prevention of Adolescent Risky Behaviors: Neural Markers of Intervention Effects

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2020 · $67,013

## Abstract

Adolescence is a time of dramatic biological, behavioral and social changes. It is one of the healthiest periods of
the life-span, yet morbidity and mortality rates increase 200%, often attributed to natural tendencies to explore
and take risks that increase vulnerability to risky and dangerous behaviors. Rapid advances in developmental
neuroscience are revealing new insights into how biology and social context interact to increase adolescents'
risk-taking behavior which is attributed to a temporal disassociation between maturational changes in two distinct
neural systems: “socio-emotional” (reward) and “cognitive-control” (self-regulation). The socio-emotional system
is stimulated by a rapid increase in dopaminergic activity at puberty, which influences reward-seeking behavior.
This increase in reward-seeking precedes the maturation of the cognitive-control system and its connections to
the reward system. This proposal aims to apply these new insights on neurobiology of adolescents' responses
to alcohol/drug use and sex-related risk opportunities by examining brain changes in response to a theoretically-
based and empirically-tested prevention program that targets risky behavior in African-American youth during
pubertal transition. This racial group is disproportionately affected by the high morbidity and mortality associated
with HIV-related risky behaviors and exemplifies a significant health disparity in our society. The intervention was
designed on the basis of developmental issues and socio-cultural contextual processes germane to African-
American families, and has been shown in randomized controlled trials to delay/deter HIV-related risky behaviors
in this vulnerable population. This proposal extends the efficacy studies of the intervention by using functional
magnetic resonance imaging to quantify the biological changes in response to the intervention. Identifying neural
substrates of the intervention can facilitate refinement of the program by focusing on the components that are
most effective in changing behavioral and neural circuitry and also aid in the development of new interventions
for subgroups of youth that don't have a positive outcome. Using a randomized controlled design, we will assess
the neural substrates of risk-taking and risk-avoidant behavior before and after the 6-week computer-interactive,
family-based intervention in 11-13 year-old African-American youth. Psychological processes shown to mediate
the intervention effects on behaviors that dissuade alcohol and drug use and sexual onset (i.e. reward-drive and
cognitive-emotional self-regulation) will be assessed at baseline and 3 months post-intervention. Based on prior
studies that reported observable brain changes in response to psychosocial interventions, our hypothesis is that
a positive response to the intervention will be associated with greater functional connectivity changes between
the socio-emotional (reward-drive) and cognitive-control (self-regulation) com...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10116596
- **Project number:** 3R01DA040966-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** UMA RAO
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $67,013
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2017-07-01 → 2021-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10116596

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10116596, Prevention of Adolescent Risky Behaviors: Neural Markers of Intervention Effects (3R01DA040966-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10116596. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*