When CRAN was formed in 2014, the Directors of the three partnering Institutes (the National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA], and the National Cancer Institute [NCI]), quickly realized that a large longitudinal study was the most important contribution they could make together to answer fundamental questions concerning the impact of substance use on adolescent development. The ABCD Study will create a well-characterized nationwide cohort of 10,000 children starting at age 9 or 10 years and follow them through the subsequent decade. By analyzing brain development during the pre-exposure and exposure years, researchers will be in a position to clarify causal relationships between substance use and multiple associated outcomes. The study also aims to identify social and genetic vulnerabilities that may precede substance use as well as protective factors that might mitigate risk.
