# Delineating developmental windows of vulnerability for cannabis exposure and assessing for causal relations between cannabis use, neurodevelopment, and behavior

> **NIH DA R01** · UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT & ST AGRIC COLLEGE · 2026 · $387,291

## Abstract

With the ongoing trend of cannabis legalization in the United States and across the world, there is a critical need
to better understand links between cannabis use, brain development, and cognitive-behavioral outcomes.
Despite growing public belief that cannabis use is relatively benign, there remains a dearth of large longitudinal
studies examining cannabis use and brain development in humans. We propose to leverage three large
multimodal neuroimaging datasets, spanning preadolescence to late adulthood: ABCD (n=11,880; ages 9-20
followed longitudinally), IMAGEN (n=2,400; ages 14-23, followed longitudinally), and ENIGMA-Addiction
(n=14,340; ages 12-80, from 118 studies). These large, rich datasets include measures of highly relevant
behaviors (co-occurring alcohol and tobacco use, physical activity, psychopathology) while affording
unparalleled statistical power. Leveraging these datasets, we will employ linear mixed-effects models to identify
developmental windows in which areas and/or networks of the brain are most vulnerable to cannabis exposure.
Similar analyses will be conducted for relevant behavioral trajectories (e.g., attention problems, internalizing
symptomatology). Focusing on rigor and replicability, nonparametric permutation testing will be employed in
imaging analyses, and we will explicitly test if findings in one dataset extend to others. We hypothesize that
developmental windows with the greatest degree of prefrontal age-related change will be periods of greatest
vulnerability to cannabis exposure. Using a range of methodologies (propensity score matching, cross-lagged
panel design, discordant twin analyses, Bayesian causal networks), this proposal will move beyond associational
analyses towards causal mechanisms. Such analyses are desperately needed to help bridge preclinical animal
models with human neuroimaging findings. Based on our prior imaging work as well as existing rodent models,
we hypothesize that early to middle adolescence, relative t

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11297769
- **Project number:** 1R01DA062741-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT & ST AGRIC COLLEGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Matthew D Albaugh
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** DA
- **Fiscal year:** 2026
- **Award amount:** $387,291
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2026-03-01T00:00:00 → 2030-12-31T00:00:00

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11297769

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11297769, Delineating developmental windows of vulnerability for cannabis exposure and assessing for causal relations between cannabis use, neurodevelopment, and behavior (1R01DA062741-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-20 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11297769. Licensed CC0.

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