ABCD — Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study

Overview

The ABCD Study is a longitudinal multisite study of brain development and child health in the United States. Launched in 2015, it recruits children at enrolment and follows them into early adulthood, tracking multimodal MRI, cognitive, and health data relevant to neuroscience research on adolescent brain development.

Scale

• NIH institutes and offices funding the study: 17, including the NIH BRAIN Initiative
• Participants: ~10,000 children aged 9–10 at enrolment
• Research sites: 21

Data

Each annual visit includes multimodal MRI (structural T1/T2, resting-state fMRI, diffusion MRI), cognitive and behavioural assessments, mental health screening, substance use, physical activity, genetics, and wearable accelerometry. Imaging data are formatted in BIDS. Data are released annually with a one-year embargo.

Access

Data are distributed through the NIMH Data Archive (NDA), which requires a Data Use Certification. Genetic data and additional sensitive variables are also accessible via dbGaP. There is no cost to access.

Connections

• registeredIn: NIMH Data Archive
• registeredIn: dbGaP
• implements: BIDS
• fundedBy: NIH BRAIN Initiative

Resources

• https://abcdstudy.org
• https://nda.nih.gov/abcd (data access portal)
• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2018.03.001 (Volkow et al. 2018 — study design)