CMCR Investigators' Meeting

January 23, 2025

Alex P. Miller, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine, gave a presentation at the CMCR Investigators' Meeting on January 23, 2025. His presentation focused on the results of his recently published longitudinal study investigating associations between neuroanatomical differences in children’s brains and later substance use initiation, including cannabis use. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, analyzed brain scans from 9,804 children aged 9 to 11, and tracked their substance use initiation over several years.

Among their findings, Dr. Miller and colleagues reported that children who later began using cannabis had smaller right caudate volumes before initiating use. This suggests that preexisting brain differences may predispose individuals to substance use, rather than cannabis use causing these differences. These findings challenge the idea that all brain changes observed in cannabis users are caused by the drug and highlight the need for further longitudinal research.