Moreover, it is a weakness of the study that we did not assess alcohol use patterns at more frequent time intervals; recent work suggests that text messaging or other technologies might represent reliable means of capturing variations in use at more frequent intervals (78). More frequent behavioral assessment could be accompanied by equally frequent assessments of brain structure. Recent studies (79) indicate that longitudinal MRI assessment using robust registration methods is sensitive in detecting regional brain changes over a relatively brief retest interval (7 months) in adolescence. Thus, the use of shorter retest intervals in longitudinal developmental studies may permit dynamic changes in brain structure to be readily observed as they occur through typical adolescence, allowing deviations from the norm as a consequence of substance use to be more precisely identified as they occur.
