Jungmeen Kim-Spoon

Risk Decision-Making and Substance Use in Adolescents

Jungmeen Kim-Spoon, an associate professor of psychology, is conducting the first-ever large-scale longitudinal study of U.S. adolescents designed to determine youth’s risk for substance use and risky health behaviors through annual brain scans and a battery of cognitive ability and personality tests.

Kim-Spoon’s current research has its foundation in the ISCE Summer Scholars program. In 2012, she and her research team received funding to study 24 late adolescents.

“This funding was so important,” Kim-Spoon remarked. “When you consider 1-2 hours in the MRI machine and all the tests, it was not a small project just a small sample size.”

That summer, the 24 study participants performed several cognitive tests, and even did gambling tasks inside the MRI machine to see which brain regions activated when a person took or avoided a risk. Personality factors, such as impulsiveness, self-regulation, and substance use, risky health behaviors, and risky sex behaviors, were also measured.

“We found that it’s important to measure their cognitive control ability, especially when they have a high sensation-seeking or reward-seeking propensity,” explains Kim-Spoon. Those personalities are likely to take risks and enjoy thrilling experiences. This in turn can help predict drinking, smoking, and other risky health behaviors.

With that pilot data in-hand, Kim-Spoon and Co-PI Brooks King-Casas, assistant professor of psychology in the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, applied for an NIH grant that fall, and received funding the following year.

“I’m so grateful for the ISCE grant that provided the groundwork for our proposal,” says Kim-Spoon. “Otherwise I don’t think it would have been possible to be funded. Empirical evidence showing that we could do the work and some preliminary data showing that the results were promising made a stronger proposal.”

This five year multi-million dollar NIH grant is currently in year two. The investigators are following young adolescents through their development. “13 is the national average when adolescents start drinking. With four time points, we can see how their brain develops from 13 or 14 years of age to 16 or 17 and how their substance use behaviors change. We are examining how their brain changes and their personality developments. By focusing on sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, cognitive ability, and emotion-regulation skills, we will be able to explore who successfully adjusts versus youth who start using alcohol early, start using alcohol a lot, and who become addicted,” explains Kim-Spoon.

This first of its kind data will provide valuable insights about which adolescents are more vulnerable to alcohol use and the kind of factors health professionals should look for. Ultimately, the hope is that the study findings can be used to inform the development of preventions and interventions for the highest risk youth.