Prevention of Adolescent Risky Behaviors: Neural Markers of Intervention Effects

Adolescence is a time of biological and behavioral changes that can lead to risky and dangerous behaviors, and African-American youth are highly vulnerable to the consequences of risky behavior, including HIV/AIDS and violence, leading to premature death. The investigators previously showed that an intervention program reduces HIV-risk vulnerability behaviors in many African-American youth. The investigators aim to measure how the program affects different regions of the brain in order to better prevent or reduce such risky behaviors among African-American youth.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Adolescent Behavior; Risk-Taking
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Pathways for African-Americans' Success (PAAS)

Detailed Description

Adolescence is a time of dramatic biological, behavioral and social changes. It is one of the healthiest periods of the life-span, yet morbidity and mortality rates increase 200%, often attributed to natural tendencies to explore and take risks that increase vulnerability to risky and dangerous behaviors. Rapid advances in developmental neuroscience are revealing new insights into how biology and social context interact to increase adolescents' risk-taking behavior which is attributed to a temporal disassociation between maturational changes in two distinct neural systems: "socio-emotional" (reward) and "cognitive-control" (self-regulation). The socio-emotional system is stimulated by a rapid increase in dopaminergic activity at puberty, which influences reward-seeking behavior. This increase in reward-seeking precedes the maturation of the cognitive-control system and its connections to the reward system. This proposal aims to apply these new insights on neurobiology of adolescents' responses to alcohol/drug use and sex-related risk opportunities by examining brain changes in response to a theoretically-based and empirically-tested prevention program that targets risky behavior in African-American youth during pubertal transition. This racial group is disproportionately affected by the high morbidity and mortality associated with HIV-related risky behaviors and exemplifies a significant health disparity in our society. The intervention was designed on the basis of developmental issues and socio-cultural contextual processes germane to African-American families, and has been shown in randomized controlled trials to delay/deter HIV-related risky behaviors in this vulnerable population. This proposal extends the efficacy studies of the intervention by using functional magnetic resonance imaging to quantify the biological changes in response to the intervention. Identifying neural substrates of the intervention can facilitate refinement of the program by focusing on the components that are most effective in changing behavioral and neural circuitry and also aid in the development of new interventions for subgroups of youth that don't have a positive outcome. Using a randomized controlled design, the investigators will assess the neural substrates of risk-taking and risk-avoidant behavior before and after the 6-week computer-interactive, family-based intervention in 11-13 year-old African-American youth. Psychological processes shown to mediate the intervention effects on behaviors that dissuade alcohol and drug use and sexual onset (i.e. reward-drive and cognitive-emotional self-regulation) will be assessed at baseline and 3 months post-intervention. Based on prior studies that reported observable brain changes in response to psychosocial interventions, the investigators' hypothesis is that a positive response to the intervention will be associated with greater functional connectivity changes between the socio-emotional (reward-drive) and cognitive-control (self-regulation) components of the neural circuitry compared to the control condition, both at rest and during task-performance. They also postulate that these neural changes will mediate the intervention's positive effects on psychological processes involved in youth's decision to avoid HIV-risk vulnerability behaviors in the service of long-term personal goals and positive health outcomes.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 146
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Irvine, California, United States, 92617
      • University of California, Irvine

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 11 years to 14 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Subject is of African-American racial status (self-reported)
• Subject can speak and read English
• Subject and parent/legal guardian agree to participate in the 6-week PAAS program
• Subject and parent/legal guardian agree to complete all assessments
• Subject must meet MRI safety eligibility

Exclusion Criteria:

• Subject has a major medical problem (e.g. neurological disorders)
• Subject is on medication(s) that affects the central nervous system
• Subject has behavioral/emotional problems at a clinical level (parent and/or youth report)
• Subject is pregnant or suspected of being pregnant (based on pregnancy test)
• Subject is color-blind
• Subject has claustrophobia
• Subject has metallic implants
• Subject drinks alcohol in the week prior to entry into the study (based on urine drug screen)
• Subject uses drugs in the week prior to entry into the study (based on urine drug screen)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Pathways for African-Americans' Success; Subjects will complete a 6-week Pathways for African-Americans' Success (PAAS) intervention. This is a weekly, 1.5 hour/session, family intervention for 6 weeks.	Behavioral: Pathways for African-Americans' Success (PAAS); PAAS is a 6-week, technology-delivered, family-based youth risk intervention program. PAAS includes 6 sessions for parents and youth, and joint sessions in which they both engage on the same computer to integrate and practice the skills they have just learned in their separate sessions. Each session includes a review, a virtual discussion, and observing and interacting with four parent and four youth Avatars that reflect phenotypes of African Americans (AA), with voice-overs by AA parents and youth. Videos portraying family interactions and intrapersonal processes are integrated into each session to convey key points of the intervention along with interactive activities to promote skill-building and to reinforce learning. PAAS also includes a technology tutorial and an introductory session.
No Intervention: Wait-list; Subjects will be on waiting list for active intervention and will receive the PAAS intervention at the end of the study (same as active intervention).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Changes in Emotional Regulation	Emotional regulation was assessed through parent and youth self-reported questionnaires using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Second Edition (BRIEF-2). T scores, normed for age and sex are available. T-score standardizes an individual's executive functioning difficulties relative to peers. For example, 50 is the population mean and a standard deviation of 10. Higher scores indicate more significant problems. Scores below 60 are within normal limits; 60-64: subclinical difficulties; 65-69: mildly elevated; 70-74: moderately elevated; and 75 or above: considered highly elevated, suggesting significant difficulties in emotion regulation. These questionnaires were administered at baseline (before intervention) and 3 months post-intervention. Because parent report may be less biased regarding youth's regulation, we used parent data for analysis. Data imputation was done for missing data.	18 weeks (from pre-intervention to 3-months after post-intervention)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Changes in Cognitive Regulation	Cognitive regulation was assessed through parent and youth self-reported questionnaires using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Second Edition (BRIEF-2). T scores, normed for age and sex are available. T-score standardizes an individual's executive functioning difficulties relative to peers. For example, 50 is the population mean and a standard deviation of 10. Higher scores indicate more significant problems. Scores below 60 are within normal limits; 60-64: subclinical difficulties; 65-69: mildly elevated; 70-74: moderately elevated; and 75 or above: considered highly elevated, suggesting significant difficulties in cognitive regulation. These questionnaires were administered at baseline (before intervention) and 3 months post-intervention. Because parent report may be less biased regarding youth's regulation, we used parent data for analysis. Data imputation was done for missing data.	18 weeks (from pre-intervention to 3-months after post-intervention)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of California, Irvine
• Collaborators: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Uma Rao, MD, University of California, Irvine

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 11, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 31, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): April 10, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 1, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 11, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): December 12, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): January 26, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 7, 2026
• Last Verified: December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Reward-drive; Cognitive-control
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavior; Adolescent Behavior; Risk-Taking
• Other Study ID Numbers: 20173439; R01DA040966 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No