Thread by @Mina_Kwon_

Excited to share this new preprint biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh…

Is #caffeinated #soda bad for children's #brain development? If so, which specific intellectual capacity is affected? It is a question that many parents and caregivers are asking daily but there is no clear guideline 1/n

Using the #ABCDstudy data, we addressed the question in this work, “Daily caffeinated soda intake is associated with impaired working memory and higher impulsivity in children” 2/n

Some soda contains #caffeine (Coca Cola, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, etc). The physical side effects of caffeinated soda such as obesity have been well documented and the short-term effects of caffeine consumption (mostly in adults) are well known. 3/n

However, it remains unexplored if habitual caffeinated soda intake is associated with intellectual capacities such as neurocognitive functions in children! 4/n

This is a critical gap in our understanding of the effects of caffeinated soda consumption, given that many children consume caffeinated soda and underage consumption of sugary drinks has increased during the #COVID19 pandemic (washingtonpost.com/business/2020/…). 5/n

Also, not sure if publicly well known, excessive consumption of caffeinated beverages in childhood and adolescence is associated with future substance misuse. 6/n

In this paper, we investigated the behavioral and neural (#fMRI) correlates of daily consumption of caffeinated soda on three well-known neurocognitive risk factors for substance misuse: #working #memory, #impulsivity, and #reward processing (see the figure below). 7/n

Check out Casey et al. (2018) (doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.…) & Barch et al. (2018) (doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.…) for more details about the paradigms in #ABCDstudy! 8/n

We employed both univariate (hierarchical regression) and multivariate (#MachineLearning) approaches to rigorously investigate the associations between daily caffeinated soda intake and neurocognitive measures! 9/n

Hierarchical Linear regression was to identify whether caffeinated soda intake influenced working memory, impulsivity, and reward processing while controlling for confounding variables (SES, BDI, race, sex, parental monitoring, family history of drug/alcohol, etc.) 10/n

Results/ Lower working memory, higher impulsivity, and enhanced activation of the left #amygdala during the emotional working memory (N-back) task were found to be associated with daily-drinking of caffeinated soda. 11/n

#MachineLearning results/ Lower working memory, higher impulsivity, and enhanced activation of the left amygdala were found as sig. predictors of daily consumption of caffeinated soda, along with demo. predictors such as less sleep, lack of parental monitoring, and lower SES 12/n

Across all multiple analytic approaches and even after controlling for confounding factors, impaired working memory and higher impulsivity, and increased activation in the amygdala during the emotional working memory task was associated with daily caffeinated soda intake 13/n

We believe this study will have significant implications for our society and #public #health recommendations & have a message for #parents and #caregivers who would like to know whether/how much they should let their #children drink caffeinated #soda. 14/n

In future work, we also hope to examine the causal relationship between caffeinated soda consumption in #childhood and neurocognitive functions and #addiction related behaviors in #adolescence using the longitudinal #ABCDstudy data. 15/n

Thanks to co-authors @hjintwit, @jaeyeong_yang, @jihyuncindy_hur, Tae-Ho Lee (@ANDLabVT), and @wooyoungahn! Also deep thanks to the #ABCDStudy team for making this amazing dataset available! 16/16