# NCANDA Research Project Site: Duke

> **NIH NIH U01** · DUKE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $602,797

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
During young adulthood, drinking dramatically increases, with binge-level drinking peaking at age 22 and
nearly half of individuals reporting binge-level alcohol use. Frequent binge alcohol use during the protracted
neuromaturation spanning into the mid-20s may result in greater brain and cognitive effects than similar
alcohol use in later adulthood. In response to RFA-AA-17-003, this application proposes a Research Project
Site of the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence second phase (NCANDA-2)
to determine the predictors and effects of heavy adolescent alcohol use in adolescence and young adulthood.
To achieve this, the Duke site of NCANDA-2 will continue to follow a cohort of 175 in the Raleigh-Durham, NC
area (n=831 across all 5 sites) participants (ages 12-21 at baseline first visit) to acquire the necessary data to
advance our understanding of adolescent development and the effects of alcohol use during adolescence on
the adult brain. NCANDA-2 will use multimodal neuroimaging, cognitive testing, behavioral assessment,
biospecimen collection, and multimodal assessments in the natural environment. The examination of alcohol
consequences will focus on structural and functional maturation of brain areas that actively develop during
adolescence and young adulthood, are involved in psychological regulation, respond to rewards, and appear
vulnerable to neurotoxic effects of alcohol. In addition, the UCSD site will collaborate with the Duke and OHSU
sites to study recovery of these abnormalities. Specifically, we will examine the degree to which targeted heavy
drinking related neurocognitive and brain integrity deficits remit over 4 weeks of monitored abstinence. Duke
will also collaborate with the Pittsburgh site to examine the influence of alcohol use on reward and inhibitory
systems with longitudinal analyses of a rewarded antisaccade task to evaluate changes in these systems for
youth who increase drinking versus those who do not. Sex differences in development, alcohol use patterns
and history, impact of alcohol use on the brain, and sex-differentiating psychosocial factors (e.g., depression
symptoms) will be considered in analyses. With the additional longitudinal data provided by this renewal, we
will determine the effects of alcohol exposure on the developmental trajectory of the adolescent human brain,
and identify preexisting psychobiological vulnerabilities and resiliencies that may alter adolescents’ and young
adults’ risk for alcohol or other substance use disorder and other mental health and developmental outcomes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9970161
- **Project number:** 5U01AA021681-09
- **Recipient organization:** DUKE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** DAVID B. GOLDSTON
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $602,797
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2012-09-01 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9970161

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9970161, NCANDA Research Project Site: Duke (5U01AA021681-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9970161. Licensed CC0.

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