Using the NIH-Toolbox in Cognitive Development Neuroscience Research (2024)

Undergraduates: Pranav Swarna, Sharon Mabasa

Faculty Advisor: Margaret Sheridan
Department: Neuroscience

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Cognitive and behavioral function testing plays a crucial role in diagnosis, treatment planning, monitoring progress, research, functional assessment, and early intervention in various cognitive and behavioral disorders. Effective and accurate testing can improve quality of life for affected individuals, while also revealing information that can serve critical to prediction of risk factors in unaffected individuals. The NIH toolbox is a modus of testing that contains a plethora of tests. As used in the STARR study, Picture Vocabulary Test Age 3+ v2.1, Dimensional Change Card Sort Test Age 12+ v2, and Pattern Comparison Processing Speed Test Age 7+ v2.1 are administered to adolescents and adults (age 15-22). While we are not able to provide any data at the moment, the tests are crucial in quantifying participants' executive functioning (particularly the ability to sustain focus in a way that it can be rapidly and accurately shifted with conscious thought), processing speed, and receptive vocabulary knowledge (as vocabulary decoding and comprehension is highly correlated with overall cognitive functions). We aim to use this information as a part of the study to understand how adolescents are influenced by their early life experiences, particular how features of early childhood affect a teenager’s emotionality and emotion regulation.