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Psychology

Theses/Dissertations

Adolescence

University of Vermont

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Biobehavioral Predictors Of Cannabis Use In Adolescence, Philip Aaron Spechler Jan 2019

Biobehavioral Predictors Of Cannabis Use In Adolescence, Philip Aaron Spechler

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Cannabis use initiated during adolescence may precipitate lasting consequences on the brain and behavioral health of the individual. However, research on the risk factors for cannabis use during adolescence has been largely cross-sectional in design. Despite the few prospective studies, even less is known about the neurobiological predictors. This dissertation improves on the extant literature by leveraging a large longitudinal study to uncover the predictors of cannabis use in adolescent samples collected prior to exposure. All data were drawn from the IMAGEN study and contained a large sample of adolescents studied at age 14 (N=2,224), and followed up at age …


Risk Profiles For Adolescent Internalizing Problems, Kelsey Elizabeth Hudson Jan 2019

Risk Profiles For Adolescent Internalizing Problems, Kelsey Elizabeth Hudson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Objective: Internalizing problems are commonly diagnosed during adolescence, and are associated with distress, impairment, and negative mental health outcomes in adulthood. Thus, there is a critical need to characterize adolescents who are at the highest risk for escalating to clinical levels of internalizing problems while extending current literature and incorporating both biological and environmental predictors. This study aimed to characterized risk profiles for fourteen-year-old adolescents who developed clinical levels of internalizing (High Internalizing [HI]) problems by age nineteen, using brain, genetic, personality, cognitive, life history, psychopathology, and demographic measures. The study also examined whether there were functional and structural brain …


Transitions In Subtypes Of Withdrawn Behavior From Childhood To Adolescence: The Role Of Sports Participation, Meghan Conboy Schreck Jan 2017

Transitions In Subtypes Of Withdrawn Behavior From Childhood To Adolescence: The Role Of Sports Participation, Meghan Conboy Schreck

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Withdrawn behavior broadly describes individuals who are isolated from their peer group. Though not a clinical disorder, withdrawn behavior is a construct involved in many psychological problems, and it is likely the behavioral manifestation of distinct motivations and developmental processes. Additionally, withdrawn behavior is often used interchangeably with other psychological constructs, including shyness, social disinterest, and peer exclusion, making accurate classification difficult. In an effort to better understand the classification and developmental course of withdrawn behavior in youth, the current study used latent class analysis (LCA) and latent transition analysis (LTA) to identify distinct subclasses of withdrawn youth and to …


Predictive Modeling Of Adolescent Cannabis Use From Multimodal Data, Philip Spechler Jan 2017

Predictive Modeling Of Adolescent Cannabis Use From Multimodal Data, Philip Spechler

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Predicting teenage drug use is key to understanding the etiology of substance abuse. However, classic predictive modeling procedures are prone to overfitting and fail to generalize to independent observations. To mitigate these concerns, cross-validated logistic regression with elastic-net regularization was used to predict cannabis use by age 16 from a large sample of fourteen year olds (N=1,319). High-dimensional data (p = 2,413) including parent and child psychometric data, child structural and functional MRI data, and genetic data (candidate single-nucleotide polymorphisms, "SNPs") collected at age 14 were used to predict the initiation of cannabis use (minimum six occasions) by age 16. …