NIH Seeks Input on Major Study of Adolescent Substance Use

The National Institutes of Health hosted a special open forum in Washington, D.C., November 17 to discuss the proposed Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The event was scheduled to coincide with the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, as many of the 31,000 researchers who attended the conference would no doubt be interested in this ambitious project and the findings it is likely to generate.

The ABCD study will follow 10,000 children, who are naïve for any substance use, for a decade to see how nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs affect the trajectory of a developing brain.

While neuroimaging applications will provide the key data for this project, the ABCD study will also assess the participants using a host of mental, physical, and psychosocial evaluations. In addition, the study will collect samples for use in genetic and epigenetic studies.

As Harvard Medical School neurology professor Michael Charness, M.D., who moderated the discussion, told the audience, “You’ve heard of big science; this is big science on steroids.”

NIH had already completed a public request for information (RFI) in August, which had generated a substantial response, but given the size and scope of this prospective study, the ABCD leadership held this forum to hear additional suggestions on how to optimally configure this large cohort and thoughts on the major obstacles they might encounter during the decade-long journey.

Directors from all four institutes involved—the National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and National Institute on Drug Abuse were all on hand to listen to the feedback.

The discussion touched on many topics, such as sampling strategies, data validation and replication across sites, how to adapt to changes in drug policy and usage trends like the rapid growth of e-cigarettes, and ethical considerations when severe substance use is uncovered during the study.

One area that ignited a very lively debate, though, was data sharing. At heart was the question of whether the ABCD study would be primarily an “acquisition project.” Many in the audience advocated that the project data—even raw data—should be released publicly as it gets generated to allow broader access. Others, however, expressed concerns that broad release of raw data could lead to confusion and misinterpretation since individual researchers have their own methods and styles of polishing data.

In another data-related issue, there was some concern raised regarding functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity via changes in blood flow. It was noted that fMRI, still an emerging application, often generates subtle data that requires a bit of processing, and whether such data should be the cornerstone of ABCD.

However, Dolf Pfefferbaum, M.D., senior program director at SRI International and a member of the expert panel that helped design ABCD, noted that fMRI data related to the structural and functional connections of neurons—which would be a focus of this study—were strong and reliable.

While debates like this one did showcase differences in scientific opinion that were prevalent at the forum, the overall level of engagement among the audience, which represented a rich spectrum of neuroscience, mental health, and substance use research, suggests the ABCD study will generate much interest once it is launched.

NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D., stated that NIH would consider all the suggestions made at the forum as researchers finalize the study, and she anticipated that an official funding opportunity announcement would be released in early 2015. ■