Diary of a teenage brain, part 2

Summary

Unexplainable – “Diary of a Teenage Brain, Part 2” (December 10, 2025)

Vox | Hosts: Julia Longoria, Bird Pinkerton

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, the Unexplainable team dives deep into the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study—a groundbreaking, decade-long research project tracking the brains and lives of over 11,000 American children from around age nine into young adulthood. Through a mix of interviews with researchers and a participant, the team explores what the study is uncovering about teenage risk-taking, substance use, and the very real limits and promises of trying to "understand" the teenage brain.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The ABCD Study: “The Boyhood of Brain Studies”

• What is it?
  The ABCD study is a massive, decade-spanning project following almost 12,000 children as they grow up, using interviews, MRIs, behavioral tests, and biological sample collection to piece together how adolescent brains develop.
• Raul Gonzalez’s Role:
  Raul Gonzalez, a professor and principal investigator at the Florida International University (FIU) site, has dedicated over 10 years to the study, which was originally designed to identify risk factors for drug use and addiction.
• Comparison to film “Boyhood”
  "The ABCD study is the boyhood of adolescent brain studies. They've followed the same cohort of nearly 12,000 kids across the US for almost a decade." (Julia Longoria, 03:07)

---

2. How the Study Works—And Why It’s So Ambitious

• Multi-Site and Comprehensive:
  21 research sites, annual data collection including MRIs, behavioral tasks, questionnaires about home and social life, and even collections of hair, teeth, and urine samples.
  "We can get a really great understanding of who they are, what their life is like, from how their brain works to what's their family situation like, their personality, mental health assessments… also looking at brain shapes, neuroimaging data…." (Raul Gonzalez, 05:01)
• Unexpected Data:
  “We also collect baby teeth.” (Raul Gonzalez, 05:31)
  Used to track exposure to toxins.

---

3. The Evolving Focus—More Than Drugs

• Expanded Research Questions:
  While substance use was the primary driver, the study quickly expanded to cover sleep, screen time, physical activity, mental health, obesity, and more.
• Field Buy-In:
  "It's been a wonderful slippery slope." (Raul Gonzalez, 06:18)
  Researchers from across disciplines found the dataset so invaluable, they lobbied to add their own questions.

---

4. Getting Honest Answers From Teens—A Challenge

• Recruitment and Retention:
  The episode highlights the challenge of getting teens to consistently participate and respond candidly for a decade. As Julia Longoria waits in her car for a participant to arrive, she quips, "Still waiting," (09:07) illustrating the unpredictability of adolescent engagement.
• Interview with Briana (ABCD Participant):
  Briana, now 18, reflects on being a participant since age nine.
  • She’s in it, at first, because her mom signed her up; she later appreciates learning about her own brain and the incentives ("I remember one time I won like $35, which was a lot." – Briana, 15:25).
  • She describes the range of questions—from the innocuous (“how many times I use my phone?”) to the more personal (“Do you have a boyfriend?”) to substance use questions (“They asked me if I smoked once. And I was like, I’m nine.” – Briana, 16:39).

---

5. The Limits of Self-Report & How Science Fights Back

• Truthfulness of Answers:
  Raul Gonzalez acknowledges: "We have evidence that everybody is not telling us the truth. And that's not unique to this particular study..." (Raul Gonzalez, 18:15)
  • To compensate, the study uses hair toxicology—about 10% of participants who denied substance use tested positive for drugs.
    • “10% are liars.” (Julia Longoria, 19:03)
    • “Or they may be waiting to tell us the truth.” (Raul Gonzalez, 19:06)

---

6. Early Findings From the Study

• Risk Factors for Early Substance Use:
  The richest predictors so far are psychosocial and family variables—not brain scans.
  • "The psychosocial factors and the kind of family variables were better, or like more useful predictors of trying substances than the brain structure stuff." (Bird Pinkerton, 21:22)
  • “Not that the neuroimaging is meaningless… but its explanatory value… is not as strong…” (Raul Gonzalez, 21:35)
• Context for Early Substance Use:
  Raul clarifies that experimenting with substances does not doom a teen:
  • “Oh no, absolutely not. Most people have a full drink do not develop an alcohol use disorder.” (Raul Gonzalez, 22:19)

---

7. The Hope: A Roadmap for Intervention

• Looking for Actionable Patterns:
  By tracking kids across similar backgrounds—e.g., sleep habits, screen time, family life—the hope is to spot factors that can be changed or targeted with interventions.
  • “If the data showed that the kids who slept more tended to have fewer problems with alcohol, then maybe for kids with this kind of profile, getting more sleep could be an effective intervention.” (Bird Pinkerton, 23:45)
  • “That’s exactly right. And we can even go one step further…” (Raul Gonzalez, 24:12)

---

8. The Human Side—Parenting and Risk

• Raul as a Parent:
  Raul has a 16-year-old and, despite his expertise, shares the universal challenge of judging which risky behaviors are concerning and which are just “normal.”
  • “Oh, well, yes. I mean, I think I struggle like any parent, but boy, I sure want her to make plenty of mistakes while I’m still around. And I can still kind of catch her before she falls or… let her fall and experience natural consequences from mistakes and learn. Mistakes are opportunities to learn.” (Raul Gonzalez, 25:52)
  • “I cannot stop my daughter from engaging in risky behaviors. And then also, you know, why would I? Risk is an inherent part of the human condition.” (Raul Gonzalez, 26:12)
• Limits of Science for Individuals:
  Even as the study builds a “better roadmap,” Raul points out, “There's too much serendipity involved… These are things that can move the health of an entire population. But then applying some of these group-level findings to the individual… it may not work out exactly how it worked out in the paper for that one kid.” (Raul Gonzalez, 27:01-27:25)

---

Memorable Quotes

• “It was going to be the study that anybody would ever want to do, but nobody would ever have the resources to do.” – Raul Gonzalez (04:36)
• “Baby teeth are really cool because they're like the barks of a tree and they can tell us about exposure to all sorts of heavy metals and toxins from birth.” – Raul Gonzalez (05:35)
• “10% are liars.” – Julia Longoria (19:03)
  “Or they may be waiting to tell us the truth.” – Raul Gonzalez (19:06)
• “Most people who have a full drink do not develop an alcohol use disorder. The vast majority of people that smoke a joint or consume cannabis do not develop a cannabis use disorder.” – Raul Gonzalez (22:19)
• “Boy, I sure want her to make plenty of mistakes while I'm still around. And I can still kind of catch her before she falls... Mistakes are opportunities to learn.” – Raul Gonzalez (25:52)
• “Risk is an inherent part of the human condition. What I can do is try to mitigate the risks and hope that in the face of risk we can still get great outcomes.” – Raul Gonzalez (26:12)

---

Notable Timestamps

• 03:07: Julia introduces the ABCD as the “boyhood” of brain studies
• 05:01: Raul details the breadth of ABCD’s data collection
• 13:49: Briana describes how her mother signed her up for the study
• 15:25: Briana talks about memory games and the allure of $35 in prize money
• 16:39: Briana’s surprise at being asked about smoking at age 9
• 19:03: Raul admits that 10% of participants test positive for substances they deny using
• 21:22: Bird explains that psychosocial variables out-predict brain scans for substance experimentation
• 22:19: Raul reassures that trying substances is not a ticket to addiction
• 23:45: Bird and Raul discuss use of the data for actionable interventions
• 25:52: Raul on letting his teenage daughter make mistakes: “Mistakes are opportunities to learn.”

---

Conclusion

This episode offers a rare glimpse inside one of the most ambitious neuroscience experiments of our time, mixing scientific explanation with personal narrative. Through expert voices and first-hand experience, it reveals both the promise and the very real limitations of peering into teenage minds – reminding listeners that while large-scale data may light the way for public health, the “art of parenting” will always require not just data, but human judgment, patience, and humility.

---

Next in the series:
Stay tuned for the follow-up episode, which will focus on what we might learn from teens themselves.

For more about the ABCD study and findings, visit the study’s website (as mentioned by the hosts at 27:52).

Transcript

[Bird Pinkerton]

We all have moments where we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes.

[Advertisement Voice 1]

Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato.

[Julia Longoria]

Ouch.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Coulda done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn [e-mail].

[Advertisement Voice 2]

Support for the show comes from the Audible original the Downloaded Ghosts in the Machine. Earth's final days are near and the clock is ticking for members of the Phoenix colony. All they need to do is upload their minds back into the quantum computer. Simple enough. But their plan is disrupted by digital duplicates of their own minds that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Roscoe Kadoulian in this follow up to the Audible hit sci fi thriller the Downloaded by Canada's most decorated sci fi author, Robert J. Sawyer. What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? Find out in the thought provoking sequel, the downloaded two Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible.

[Bird Pinkerton]

All right, Julia. Julia Longoria, co host of Unexplainable Bird, Pinkerton.

[Julia Longoria]

Here we are. Here we are at the doorstep of my maternity leave. Literally. It begins tomorrow.

[Bird Pinkerton]

But before you go, you have one last story to tell you.

[Julia Longoria]

One last story. Yes. And appropriately, it's about the youths.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Come on.

[Briana]

Hi.

[Julia Longoria]

Hey.

[Briana]

Nice to meet you.

[Julia Longoria]

I'm Julia.

[Raul Gonzalez]

This is part of our team.

[Julia Longoria]

So I went to the fiu, the Florida International University center for Children and Families.

And I met with a researcher named Raul Gonzalez. These days when I meet people in person, I am a real conversation starter. I know I'm like really pregnant. I'm very pregnant.

[Raul Gonzalez]

You do not look at the stage that you're at. From what you told, it is true. It is true.

[Julia Longoria]

So, yeah, I was immediately a fan of Raul Gonzalez. He could tell me I don't look that pregnant all day long.

[Bird Pinkerton]

What does he research?

[Julia Longoria]

So he is the head of the Miami chapter of a really fascinating national study about teen brains.

[Raul Gonzalez]

I'm a professor of psychology, psychiatry and immunology. And my area of research over the last 20 plus years has focused on risk factors and consequences for drug use and addiction. And for the last little over 10 years, my life has been fully dedicated to the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

[Julia Longoria]

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. ABCD for short. Have you ever seen the movie Boyhood? So it starts with a child actor and they film the same boy as he's growing up over the years. Yeah. The ABCD study is the boyhood of adolescent Brain Studies. They've followed the same cohort of nearly 12,000 kids across the US for almost a decade. The ABCD kids that Raul's been following are now entering college.

[Advertisement Voice 2]

Wow.

[Julia Longoria]

So the ABCD study was first born when the NIH asked an age old question. Are the kids all right? Or more specifically, if they end up being not all right, why? What are the risk factors that lead to substance abuse? This was a question that Raul was studying in his little corner of the field. But it was tricky. Sample sizes were small.

[Raul Gonzalez]

There was this recognition that to really move the field forward and understand what is a risk factor as compared to a consequence of substance use, we really needed to start with a huge study that started with adolescents before they started experimenting or using drugs.

[Julia Longoria]

So when he heard there was going to be a national study following thousands of kids across the country over the course of their entire childhoods, he was in.

[Raul Gonzalez]

It was going to be the study that anybody would ever want to do, but nobody would ever have the resources to do.

[Julia Longoria]

Raul became the head of The Florida site, one of 21 sites across the nation. They recruited kids at around age 9. And over time, they'd take MRIs of their brains and ask all kinds of questions to kids and their parents about their lives.

[Raul Gonzalez]

We can get a really great understanding of who they are, what their life is like, from how their brain works to what's their family situation like, their personality, mental health assessments. They're also looking at brain shapes, neuroimaging data, brain structure, but also brain function. We have them do tasks while they're in the scanner to see how their brain is functioning as they're trying to solve problems.

[Julia Longoria]

It also collects urine samples, hair samples.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Talking about things we collect. You know, we also collect baby teeth.

[Briana]

Really?

[Raul Gonzalez]

Yes. Sounds kind of gross and weird, right, to have a baby teeth collection. But baby teeth are really cool because they're like the barks of a tree and they can tell us about exposure to all sorts of heavy metals and toxins from birth.

[Julia Longoria]

Wow.

[Raul Gonzalez]

We have genetics. We look at all sorts of different stress hormones. I mean, we can't get everything, but we try.

[Julia Longoria]

Basically, this study was going to be an adolescent data treasure trove to end all treasure troves.

[Raul Gonzalez]

We covered so many things that we thought were important as risk factors for substance use and addiction.

[Julia Longoria]

So was that the main impetus is like is substance use and addiction was the kind of.

[Raul Gonzalez]

That's how it started, Julia. But it's been a wonderful slippery slope.

[Julia Longoria]

Once word got out to the field of adolescent brain research. That the NIH was going to collect data from a huge national data set. Over the course of years, other researchers, not just substance abuse researchers, wanted in on it.

[Raul Gonzalez]

More folks started wanting to chip in and add additional things to the protocol.

[Julia Longoria]

Wanting to ask more questions and collect more data.

[Raul Gonzalez]

We've been contributing to areas of sleep and mental health, screen time and mental health, physical activity and its role, risk factors for obesity. What is typical brain development in youth and adolescents? We don't know.

[Bird Pinkerton]

All right, let's pause here for a second. This is Byrd, by the way, because Julia is out on her maternity leave now. But when she first told me about this study, it kind of boggled my mind. The idea that there has been this enormous science experiment running for a decade to figure out what's going on inside teens heads. It's kind of amazing to me. I feel like people have been trying to figure out teens for a long time. Why can't he act his age with limited success in years?

[Raul Gonzalez]

They're young men, but sometimes in their behavior, they act like children.

[Julia Longoria]

That's it.

[Bird Pinkerton]

And so I wanted to know more about what these ABCD researchers are finding. But I also wanted to understand how it all works, because I couldn't help but think that, sure, teens can be the coolest and most articulate people you've ever met in your life, but they can also clam up completely, right? And tell you absolutely nothing. Like it is sometimes hard to even get a teen to show up to something to begin with, as Julia, in fact, experienced.

[Julia Longoria]

Okay, I am sitting in my car.

[Bird Pinkerton]

After she met Raul, Julia wanted to meet with one of the teens in the study.

[Julia Longoria]

It is 1:10pm on a Monday, and this teen told me that she would be here between 12:30 and 1.

[Briana]

So.

[Julia Longoria]

Maybe I'm getting a text message. What's up? Interference?

No, that's not her.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Listening to Julia waiting in her car, it really did make me wonder. How do you get 10,000 or so kids to show up and answer questions or get their brain scanned year after year? How do you get them to talk to you about their lives? Honestly?

[Julia Longoria]

Still waiting.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Fortunately, the teen did arrive. Julia did get some answers to these questions, but we are going to have to wait for just a little bit longer to hear them. Approximately the length of an ad break.

[Julia Longoria]

Teenagers. Am I right.

Guys?

[Bird Pinkerton]

Thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree, Zoe.

[Raul Gonzalez]

This thing weighs a ton. Drewy, lift with your legs, man.

[Julia Longoria]

Santa.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Santa, did you get my letter?

[Raul Gonzalez]

He's talking to you, Bridges. I'm not that.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Of course he did.

[Julia Longoria]

Right.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Sand you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list. And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies, right Mrs. Claus?

[Bird Pinkerton]

I'm Mrs. Claus much younger sister And AT T Mobile there's no trade in needed when you switch, so you can.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.

[Bird Pinkerton]

And the best part, you can make the switch to T mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes.

[Julia Longoria]

Nice.

[Raul Gonzalez]

My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber the holidays are better AT T.

[Advertisement Voice 2]

Mobile so switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed. With 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 device connection charge. Credits end and balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. 256 gigs $830 eligible poured in a new line $100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Check out in 15 minutes or less per line.

[Advertisement Voice 3]

Visit t mobile.com let's be honest. Are you happy with your job? Like really happy? The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown or one we never wanted in the first place. But still, we stick it out. And we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse? I've already put years into this place, and maybe the most common one. Isn't everyone kind of miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry Me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be. Your coach helps you get clear on your goals, create a plan, build your confidence, and keeps you accountable along the way. So don't leave your career to chance. Take action and own your future. With a professional coach in your corner, go to Strawberry Me Unstuck to claim a special offer. That's Strawberry Me Unstuck.

[Advertisement Voice 1]

Support for this show comes from SC Johnson.

[Bird Pinkerton]

We've all been there.

[Advertisement Voice 1]

Choosing not to wear your new white shoes because there's a 10% chance of rain. Bending awkwardly over the tiny coffee table to enjoy a sip of your latte, not ordering the red sauce. Those feelings of dread are what we call stainxiety. But now you can break free from your stainxiety with Shout's triple Acting spray that has stain fighting ingredients to remove a huge variety of stains so you can live in the moment and clean up later. Just breathe and shout with shout triple acting spray. Learn [e-mail].

[Raul Gonzalez]

Why doesn't he grow up? Why does he still behave as a child?

[Briana]

So my name is Briana. I am an artist and I've been doing art since I was 8 years old.

[Julia Longoria]

Brianna is 18 years old. She has dark eyes, dark, long black hair. She's wearing a FIU T shirt where she'll be enrolling next semester to study art.

[Briana]

I like to do painting, drawing, sometimes sculpting here and there. But I mostly work with material called gouache. And yeah, yeah, I like to draw cars.

[Julia Longoria]

Her dream is to someday design cars for a luxury car brand.

[Briana]

But also I would like to also work with more affordable brands for cars so more people that don't have the luxurious money can also buy those cars that I created.

[Julia Longoria]

Yeah, to make things easy, we met at her future alma mater, fiu, in the very same office where the ABCD study takes place. It feels a lot like a doctor's office. A little lobby to welcome people. They're playing soft jazz. There's a maze of rooms that feel like doctor exam rooms, some with a bunch of chairs set up for interviews. There are snacks like Mac and cheese and goldfish stickers for prizes you can win. She remembers the original reason she joined the study was not exactly her choice at first. It was her mom's.

[Briana]

My mom was really intrigued by it, how like she was intrigued by the concept of seeing my brain develop and like, you know, like how the adolescents develop. And so she signed me up for it.

[Julia Longoria]

She mostly remembers her mom coming home with a folder full of pamphlets and then she ended up here in this office.

[Briana]

But the first session I came here and they explained to me to a fifth grader, which was honestly really great experience. And I really continued with it because my mom, like she wouldn't force something upon me. Like it's something with my choice as well.

[Julia Longoria]

As a nine year old, she remembers she liked the idea of learning about her own brain. She wasn't thrilled about the idea of the MRI at first.

[Briana]

I was just scared of like the feeling of not having to move because in the MRI you can't really move so you have to stay still.

[Julia Longoria]

But she was into the idea of winning some money. Participants do get compensated and kids would win prizes. So she was in. One of the main things that sticks out in her memory are the games they play on the iPad. Like a memory game she played once or one that Raul had mentioned to me. He said these games are meant to help researchers assess how much different kids are willing to take big risks with prizes on the line.

[Raul Gonzalez]

There's visuals and you're clicking on things and you're picking this versus that. And sometimes you pick here and you win some money and sometimes you lose some money. So it draws for sort of this reward seeking behavior.

[Julia Longoria]

Is it sort of like you're taking the preteens to the a version of the casino?

[Raul Gonzalez]

You know, pretty, pretty much.

[Briana]

I remember one time I won like $35, which was a lot. And I think the maximum that you could have won was like 40. So I was pretty happy.

[Julia Longoria]

This brings us back to the original purpose of the study. The researchers wanted to assess risk taking behavior of youths to see if there were risk factors that might lead to substance abuse down the road.

I was wondering if Briana had gotten any hints that the researchers were trying to suss out if she'd made any questionable choices. She told me they've asked her a lot of different kinds of questions over the last 10 or so years.

[Briana]

Personal questions and also general questions about.

[Julia Longoria]

Like, what I eat, how much she.

[Briana]

Sleeps, how many times do you drink.

[Julia Longoria]

Caffeine, how much does she exercise, how.

[Briana]

Many times I go to school, how many times I use my phone, how many hours of the week do I use my phone?

[Julia Longoria]

What does she use her phone for? And as she got older and it got more appropriate, they also started asking other questions.

[Briana]

So they'd ask me like, oh, do you have a boyfriend? How long have you guys been together?

[Julia Longoria]

She told me the most surprising question she got came early on.

[Briana]

They asked me if I smoked once. And I was like, I'm nine.

[Julia Longoria]

And as she got older, they went.

[Briana]

More in depth of the. The drugs. So, like, different types of drugs, like edibles and so they went more in depth of those fentanyl and all of that. In depth how?

[Julia Longoria]

Like, what were they asking?

[Briana]

I don't remember the names. It's like, it's like really, like, like really intricate names of the different types of drugs that they're asking you if.

[Julia Longoria]

You had done them.

[Briana]

Yeah, exactly.

[Julia Longoria]

If you'd heard of them or.

[Briana]

Yeah, exactly. Or if I've done any of them. It was mostly that.

[Julia Longoria]

This line of questioning was really fascinating to me because sure, these kids are told all their answers are going to be confidential unless they say something concerning about endangering themselves or others. But still, what teen is going to willingly admit to doing Drugs to an adult. On the record, Briana told me she does not and has not done any drugs, and I do believe her.

[Briana]

Nothing serious with, like, alcohol or drugs or anything like that. I know my parents taught me well to not play with that, and so I've always respected that.

[Julia Longoria]

Do you think if you were smoking, you would have told the truth?

[Briana]

Honestly, I don't know if. It depends if I would tell my mom or not. If I didn't tell her, then I wouldn't say the truth, but if I did, then, yeah, I would have said it. But, yeah, no.

[Julia Longoria]

Didn't this seem like a real flaw in the study? I posed that question to Raul.

[Raul Gonzalez]

That is a great question, and I actually have some answers for this. Sink your teeth into it. Okay, cool. Do we have evidence that everybody's telling us the truth? We have evidence that everybody is not telling us the truth. And that's not unique to this particular study. But we have some things to try to assess, measure, and control for this. So a subset of our. We collect hair samples from all our participants that we're able to collect hair samples from. There's money to sample some of them. So we do hair toxicology testing for presence of drugs in the hair, which is a very reliable way and can capture it. Quite a While back, about 10% of our participants have had positive hair toxicology results but reported no use.

[Julia Longoria]

10% are liars.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Or they may be waiting to tell us the truth.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Right.

[Julia Longoria]

That's a nice way to put it.

[Bird Pinkerton]

All right, Bird, again. So the answer to the question, how do you get answers from teens? Is you ask them questions, but you also test their hair. You have them play games with some prize money on the line. You scan their brains to see if there are any answers hiding out in there. Right. The next thing I wanted to know, though, was what researchers working on this giant science experiment had actually figured out. It turns out a fair amount. There have been over 4, 1400 papers published so far on teens, relationship to caffeine and sleep and gaming on the effects of family conflict and puberty timing, all kinds of interesting stuff. I called Raul to learn a little bit more about his part of things. So the questions of drug use and addiction. And he says they're still waiting on some of the most interesting data because the kids are in their late teens now, so 18, 19, 20. But it'll take a while for the data from their current lives to be cleaned up and ready to use. So he told me that researchers have spent their time so far looking at the data Coming in from the kids when they were tweens and early teens up to about 16 or so.

[Raul Gonzalez]

That's why a lot of the studies now, because of their age, are focusing on sipping alcohol, sipping behavior, vaping puffs.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Stuff that's not heavy substance use, but more like testing the waters. Researchers working with ABCD study data can now look through everything that's been collected and see what might make someone more likely to have tried a substance. So for example, some researchers looked at data from ABCD study 12 year olds.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Social demographic variables, psychosocial variables, things like religion, race, ethnicity, income, peer factors, parent factors, the family environment, hormones, cognitive functioning, and then also structural brain imaging.

[Bird Pinkerton]

And what they found in this study at least, was that the psychosocial factors and the kind of family variables were better or like more useful predictors of trying substances than the brain structure stuff.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Not that the neuroimaging is meaningless or we're not learning more about the brain and how it works, but it's explanatory value in predicting future behavior is not as strong as some other factors that we're measuring now.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Another study did find that brain function scans might be more useful for predicting early substance use. But all brain scans aside, if you're thinking, is it a big deal to try a substance, it's a fair question, right? Raul is not saying that trying a single puff of weed or a single sip of beer, or even a whole beer is going to doom you to a life of substance abuse.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Oh no, absolutely not. Most people who have a full drink do not develop an alcohol use disorder. The vast majority of people that smoke a joint or consume cannabis do not develop a cannabis use disorder.

[Bird Pinkerton]

But this data about early substance use should be helpful to the researchers when they finally get their eyes on the data they're collecting now from older teenagers. This period is when Raul says, we tend to see more heavy drug use start and more problems with drug use.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Folks are starting to become independent. They're starting to start their own lives. So being able to continue following the youth into their 20s and seeing where they go, what they do, how they're functioning in the real world once the training wheels come off, is going to be incredibly valuable data.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Raoul's hope here is that if they comb through enough variables, enough brain scans and genetic data points and questions about sleep, basically if they do a good enough job of peering into kids heads, then down the line, it could lead to a kind of roadmap for navigating the risky behaviors that so many teens engage in, a map that could help Them see where teens tend to take wrong turns so they can help figure out what interventions might be effective.

Like, let's say that the study had some kids who had very similar lives, right? They had a similar friend network, similar background, but some of them slept six hours a night and some of them slept eight hours a night. If the data showed that the kids who slept more tended to have fewer problems with alcohol, then maybe for kids with this kind of profile, getting more sleep could be an effective intervention.

[Raul Gonzalez]

That's exactly right. And we can even go one step further. We could then even say what were some of the things that are contributing to poor sleep. We might find that more screen time, less physical activity, we can start working our way backwards to try to disentangle the associations among these variables Again.

[Bird Pinkerton]

At the end of the day, the hope for Raul and his colleagues is that what they've learned from the ABCD study will help teens out in the world.

In his conversations with Julia, though, Raul mentioned that he has a personal stake in trying to understand the teenage brain.

[Julia Longoria]

You have a 16 year old?

[Raul Gonzalez]

I do.

[Julia Longoria]

How is that going?

[Raul Gonzalez]

I'm loving it. I feel like I hit the jackpot with her. She's got great judgment, but she's a teenager and I see her now approaching all of these things that we often as adults refer to as risky behaviors.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Stuff that he might want to steer her clear of, but stuff that also might be fine or at least normal.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Meaning that.

A significant proportion, if not half, or maybe even more than half, of other teens also engage in similar behaviors.

[Bird Pinkerton]

How much should Raoul worry if his teenager tries a sip of alcohol? Right. Or even a whole drink? Like so many parents of so many teens before him, he has to try and figure out what's kind of dumb, but ultimately maybe fine for his daughter to do and what is too risky and might lead to serious problems for her someday. When I called him up, I asked him if he struggles watching her make potential mistakes.

[Raul Gonzalez]

Oh, well, yes. I mean, I think I struggle like any parent, but boy, I sure want her to make plenty of mistakes while I'm still around. And I can still kind of catch her before she falls or let her fall and experience natural consequences from mistakes and learn. Mistakes are opportunities to learn.

[Bird Pinkerton]

I.

[Raul Gonzalez]

So I cannot stop my daughter from engaging in risky behaviors. And then also, you know, why would I? Risk is an inherent part of the human condition. What I can do is try to mitigate the risks and hope that in the face of risk we can still get great outcomes.

[Bird Pinkerton]

And obviously she's a few years behind the cohort here. But she's close enough to them that you can't, you know, you don't have all of the data right now that you would hope to have in like a decade.

[Raul Gonzalez]

And even if I did, Bird, I wouldn't know how to apply it to an individual. Right. You know, like really for her specifically, I would have to. That would be the art of parenting. Right.

[Bird Pinkerton]

But you don't feel like if you rated a decade, you would have like a perfect roadmap or something to.

[Raul Gonzalez]

I think I'd have a better roadmap. I don't know if I'd have a perfect roadmap. There's too much serendipity involved. But I do hope we can get better at understanding these various paths. So there are things this is good for, like general policies, public health. These are things that can move the health of an entire population.

But then applying some of these group level findings to the individual, you're better off than being uninformed. But it may not work out exactly how it worked out in the paper for the group for that one kid. But now, you know, apply it over thousands of kids and then, you know.

[Bird Pinkerton]

It'S different and see what happens.

If you want to learn more about the ABCD study and its findings, we will link to their website in the transcript. If you want to learn more about developing brains, stick around because this is actually the first in a two episode series about Teen brains. This week we talked about what we're learning about Teen Brains. Next week we'll talk about what we might learn from them. Until then, this episode was reported by Julia Longoria with some help from Me, Bird Pinkerton and it was produced by Julia and by me. Julia, we're all sending our love to both you and your baby. This episode was edited by Sarah Kate Kramer, Jorge Just Joanna Solotaroff and Meredith Hadnot helped keep this project running smoothly with all kinds of guidance. And Joanna is running the show. Christian Ayala did the mixing and the sound design. Noam Hassenfeld wrote the music. Kim Slaughterback checked our facts. Sally Helm and Amy Padula are the fact that some birds can see ultraviolet light. And I am always, always, always grateful to Brian Resnick for co founding the show with me and with Noam. Thanks also this week to Bhattar Torani for his time and this series was made possible by support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. If you have thoughts about this episode, if you've got thoughts about Teen Brains, say, or if you're participating in a longitudinal study that you think we should know about, please don't hesitate to reach out@ unexplainableox.com we'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to support the show and the journalism that VOX does, we would love it if you would become a member this holiday season. Your membership actually goes further when you join VOX as an annual member, we will gift a complimentary membership to a reader facing financial barriers. You can read more about all of [e-mail] members if you can't join our membership for whatever reason, it would also mean a lot if you would leave us a nice review on your podcast platform. Five stars or a written review. That'd be nice too. Or just tell someone in your life that they might want to listen to the show. Those things make a real difference. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and we will be back on Wednesday with another episode about teen Brains.

[Advertisement Voice 4]

Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit, Saks is where you can find everything from the perfect Chloe bag for your hard to shop for sister to a Prada jacket for a fancy holiday dinner. And if you don't know where to start, Saks.com is customized to your personal style so you can save time shopping. Make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Saks Fifth Avenue.

[Advertisement Voice 1]

Support for the show comes from Charles Schwab at Schwab. How you invest is is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more.