Thread by @jennDSN

Check out this foundational work led by @hertinglab @Devel_Brain_Lab on pubertal development in the baseline #ABCDstudy data! Particularly innovative means of comparing self-reports and hormone levels. Buckle up, this 🧵 will also link you to a few bonus articles on puberty. 1/

https://twitter.com/hertinglab/status/1362452901780627457

Led by @cecily_cardew, a stellar international team of puberty scholars wrote a researcher's guide to using puberty baseline data in the #ABCDstudy, which you can find detailed in her wonderful tweetorial and also read the preprint (under review). 2/

https://twitter.com/cecily_cardew/status/1307019793342455809

Relatedly: in our TAG study cohort, led by @24michelle we have looked at the different ways of measuring puberty (for instance, self-report of physical development using words or line drawings vs. hormones in saliva or hair). 3/

https://twitter.com/flourneuro/status/1214257891475099649

Note that if Michelle did a tweet on that preprint (still looking for a journal home), I can't find it, because her pinned tweet is about an absurd reviewing request related to pet alligators and wind turbines 😆🐊 but I digress... 4/

Also in the TAG study, @marjoleinbar @24michelle led a specification curve analysis to reveal whether the link between early timing and internalizing varied by measurement method. This particular preprint makes me giddy. 5/ psyarxiv.com/p5vfb/

In it, we show that the most powerful predictor of internalizing is early timing indexed by line drawing approximations of Tanner Stages; that associations are more often significant when prospective than concurrent (so much to unpack here); and 6/

that early timing has a more pronounced negative effect on depressive (DSM-IV from K-SADS) or HiTOP-coded distress disorders, compared to anxiety (DSM-IV) disorders, fear (K-SADS) disorders, OR symptoms of depression or anxiety! 7/

Hormone levels and age at menarche were not significant predictors, suggesting that psychosocial mechanisms related to self-perception of secondary sex characteristics might be more important drivers of internalizing in early maturing girls at this stage. 8/

PS: If you're in the position of designing a study on puberty and mental health, we highly recommend letting adolescents self-report their stage of pubertal development using line drawings as part of your assessment toolkit. 9/

Circling back to the original paper, the #ABCDstudy will provide remarkable information about these maturational trajectories and relationships to neurodevelopment and well-being. In early adolescence, age and puberty don't tell you the same thing. 10/ @develadolescent

BUT: we have to be careful about oversimplified views of puberty as "Puberty with a capital p." It's a nuanced and multifaceted construct composed of social elements (how you see yourself, how others see you) AND biological ones (hormones, physical changes). /end (for now...)