This study has several limitations. First, participant motion, although relatively modest, was related to FH density, and thus needed to be controlled statistically. Second, characterizing the relationship between brain regions supporting higher-order cognitive demands and the default network will require functional connectivity analyses, which are beyond the scope of this report. Third, most participants had highly educated, affluent parents, and all were free from medical and psychiatric problems; while this minimizes a variety of potential confounds, results may not generalize to the broad population of youths at risk for AUD. Fourth, activation in the default network has not been characterized across adolescence, so we cannot yet determine if the response pattern observed here represents a developmental lag. Finally, FH results were relatively modest and did not survive strict Bonferroni correction.
