Assaf Oshri

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at University of Georgia

Study Objectives Early exposure to mature content is linked to high-risk behaviors. This study aims to prospectively investigate how sleep and sensation-seeking behaviors influence the consumption of mature video games and R-rated movies in early adolescents. A secondary analysis examines the bidirectional relationships between sleep patterns and m...

Youth’s future orientation (FO) is a robust predictor of a successful transition to adulthood, and a protective and promotive factor for resilience. However, assessing FO during adolescence and emerging adulthood is typically unidimensional, burdensome, and lacks attention to positive and negative thoughts about the future. This study aimed to deve...

Adolescent food insecurity is a salient adversity hypothesized to affect neural systems associated with increased impulsive behavior. Family environments shape how adverse experiences influence development. In this study, hypotheses were tested regarding the conjoint effects of food insecurity and family flexibility on impulsivity via alterations i...

Importance Racial discrimination is a psychosocial stressor associated with youths’ risk for psychiatric symptoms. Scarce data exist on the moderating role of amygdalar activation patterns among Black youths in the US. Objective To investigate the association between racial discrimination and risk for psychopathology moderated by neuroaffective pr...

Background Employing a developmental psychopathology framework, we tested the utility of the hormesis model in examining the strengthening of children and youth through limited levels of adversity in relation to internalizing and externalizing outcomes within a brain-by-development context. Methods Analyzing data from the Adolescent Brain and Cogn...

Objectives: Disproportionate exposure to childhood adversity and the effects of racial discrimination take a toll on Black American men’s mental health. Despite increasing rates of suicidal behaviors and thoughts among young adult, Black American men, few longitudinal studies examine their risk for suicidal and death ideation (SDI). We tested a dev...

Dietary interventions designed to examine the role of nutrition on childhood bone accrual have often focused on the role of individual micronutrients (e.g., calcium, vitamin D, and zinc), and macronutrients (e.g., protein). The osteogenic benefits of whole foods, such as eggs, are not well understood despite eggs being a source of high‐quality nutr...

Pubertal development has been separately linked to adolescents’ sleep problems and larger family functioning, but research connecting these inter-related processes remains sparse. This study aimed to examine how pubertal status and tempo were related to early adolescents’ sleep and their family functioning. Using longitudinal data from the Adolesce...

Introduction Exposure to childhood maltreatment may undermine the crucial developmental task of identity formation in adolescence, placing them at risk for developing negative affect. The current study investigated whether COVID‐19‐related stress intensified the indirect link between child maltreatment and adolescents' negative affect through ident...

Offspring of parents who experienced childhood neglect are at increased risk for developing internalizing problems. Empirical evidence suggests this link is principally mediated through parenting behavior. However, such intergenerational cycles of adversity are found to be disrupted in many families. Parasympathetic nervous system functioning is we...

Introduction: Young, Black American men experience greater social, legal and economic consequences of substance use compared with White men for comparable levels of consumption. The development of tailored interventions requires prospective information on their substance use patterns, risk factors and consequences. We identified longitudinal subst...

Objectives: Youth raised in stressful environments are at increased risk for developing impulsive traits, which are a robust precursor of problem behaviors. Sleep may mediate the link between stress and problem behaviors as it is both sensitive to stress and essential for neurocognitive development underlying behavioral control during adolescence....

Introduction Adolescents who evince higher levels of impulsive traits are more susceptible to early use of mature-rated gaming and watching R-rated movies. This is a major public health concern because exposure to mature-rated media in youth is associated with decreased empathy and aggressive behaviors later in life. However, not all youth with hig...

Symptoms of anxiety are related to decreases in cognitive performance in middle-aged to older adults (i.e., ages 50 and older; MOA). Verbal fluency (VF), assessed with the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Category Switching (VF-CS) task, captures elements of executive function such as semantic memory, response initiation and inhibiti...

Evidence suggests significant interrelations among parent and adolescent sleep (i.e., concordance). However, less is known regarding how parent–adolescent sleep concordance varies as a function of the family context. This study examined daily and average concordance between parent and adolescent sleep and explored adverse parenting and family funct...

In developmental science, resilience refers to children and youths’ ability to recover and pursue positive development in the face of stress related to adversity. Extant research has documented protective factors and ecological contexts that mitigate the impact of adversity and thereby promote resilience. One intriguing aspect of resilience is that...

Objective The development of depressive symptoms often increases in adolescence, and for Black American youth, can result in disproportionately long-lasting and deleterious outcomes. Despite the epidemiological trend, scant research has examined the longitudinal development of heterogeneous patterns of depressive symptoms among Black American youth...

Significant structural and functional brain development occurs during early adolescence. These changes underlie developments in central neurocognitive processes such as working memory (WM) and emotion regulation (ER). The preponderance of studies modeling trajectories of adolescent brain development use variable-centered approaches, omitting attent...

Background: Elevated brain choline is associated with better executive function in preadolescents. Manipulating dietary choline prospectively in preadolescents using egg supplementation could improve executive function via effects on brain cellular and neurotransmitter function. Objective: Test the 9-mo impact of egg supplementation on executive...

Experiences of child abuse and neglect are risk factors for youth suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Accordingly, suicide risk may emerge as a developmental process that is heavily influenced by the rearing environment. We argue that a developmental, theoretical framework is needed to guide future research on child maltreatment and youth (i.e., adole...

The negative impact of stress on neurocognitive functioning is extensively documented by empirical research. However, emerging reports suggest that stress may also confer positive neurocognitive effects. This hypothesis has been advanced by the hormesis model of psychosocial stress, in which low-moderate levels of stress are expected to result in n...

Extensive research documents the impact of psychosocial stress on risk for the development of psychiatric symptoms across one's lifespan. Further, evidence exists that cognitive functioning mediates this link. However, a growing body of research suggests that limited stress can result in cognitive benefits that may contribute to resilience. The hyp...

Objective: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and lifetime traumatic events are closely linked to development of comorbid psychiatric symptoms and substance use. Although research shows the risk for psychiatric and substance use comorbidity conferred by early adversity, most studies have not modeled multivariate symptom patterns that include pos...

Comorbidity of antisocial behaviors (AB) and callous‐unemotional (CU) traits characterizes a subgroup of youth at risk for chronic and severe antisocial behavior in adulthood. Although aberrant neural response to facial emotion confers heightened risk for AB and CU traits, the behavioral effect of this neural response varies by family context. The...

Background: The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach proposes a novel psychiatric nosology using transdiagnostic dimensional mechanistic constructs. One candidate RDoC indicator is delay discounting (DD), a behavioral economic measure of impulsivity, based predominantly on studies examining DD and individual conditions. The current study sough...

Background Adverse parenting is consistently associated with increased sleep problems among adolescents. Shelter-in-Place restrictions and the uncertainty linked to the Covid-19 pandemic have introduced new stressors on parents and families, adding to the risk for youth's sleep problems. Objective Using multidimensional assessments of child maltre...

Introduction: Parents with childhood maltreatment histories are at risk for emotion regulation (ER) problems, which are associated with reduced self-regulation among their offspring. However, gaps remain in the literature regarding this indirect transmission pathway. First, ER consists of multiple dimensions and it is unclear which dimension is mo...

Aims: Contemporary theories of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) emphasize core dysfunctions in reward-related processes and behaviors as pathognomonic characteristics. However, to date, it is unclear which domains of reward functioning are unique to ADHD versus AUD symptom dimensions, and which represe...

Parenting behaviors are significantly linked to youths’ behavioral adjustment, an association that is moderated by youths’ and parents’ self-regulation. The biological sensitivity to context theory suggests that respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) indexes youths’ varying susceptibility to rearing contexts. However, self-regulation in the family cont...

RationaleExposure to adverse life experiences (ACEs) is robustly associated with problematic alcohol and other drug use. In addition, both ACEs and substance use have been independently associated with impulsivity.Objective To examine whether impulsivity is implicated in the link between ACE and adult substance use in two samples.Methods The primar...

Introduction Adverse parenting is associated with sleep problems in adolescence, including sleep quality, inadequate sleep, and daytime sleepiness. Adolescents who experience sleep problems are at greater risk for developing internalizing and externalizing problems. However, research on the intervening role of sleep in the link between adverse pare...

Youth who are raised in emotionally abusive families are more likely to have poor mental health outcomes such as depression and anxiety. However, the mechanisms of this association are unclear. The present study utilized a longitudinal sample of low-SES youth (N = 101, MageT1 = 10.24) to examine stress response reactivity (i.e. vagal withdrawal, sy...

Background: Substantial heterogeneity exists in how rearing environments influence youths' socio-emotional outcomes. This heterogeneity, as suggested by the biological sensitivity to context (BSCT) and the differential susceptibility (DST) theories, is associated with emotional reactivity patterns and underlying neural functions. The present study...

Introduction Child maltreatment (CM) is a significant stressor that is associated with sleep problems in children and adolescents. The COVID-19 pandemic introduces new psychosocial stressors, which may be particularly harmful to youth already experiencing stress in the home environment. Using multi-dimensional (threat vs deprivation) assessments of...

Objective Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUDs) present a complex and often severe clinical presentation within a concurrent disorders context. The objective of this study was to examine associations between PTSD symptoms and SUD outcomes to better understand the clinical phenomenon of comorbid PTSD and SUD. Multiv...

Introduction Childhood maltreatment experiences are associated with future suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, yet the roles of specific psychiatric symptoms mediating this relation remain to be clarified. To clarify these relations, we tested a model incorporating multiple forms of childhood maltreatment (sexual abuse, physical punishment, emo...

Background This paper examines the epidemiology of extra-medical use of prescription medications for sleep among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. Methods We analyzed data from the 2015–2018 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. The sample includes 3410 U.S. adults who reported extra-medical use of prescription medications for...

Young adults who experienced child abuse and neglect (CAN) are at significant risk for callous-unemotional traits and substance use problems. Research shows that compromised self-regulation may increase risk for these maladaptive outcomes. In the present cross-sectional study, we examined the moderating role of self-regulation, indexed by heart rat...

Evidence documents the importance of individual differences in masculinity ideology for men’s biological, social, and psychological well-being. Studies investigating the developmental antecedents of masculinity ideology and how it changes during specific developmental phases, however, are scarce. The present study examined the influence of childhoo...

Maltreatment is associated with risk for a wide range of socio-emotional and behavioral problems in adolescence. Despite this risk, many maltreated youth adjust well through the process of resilience. Extant research demonstrates that future orientation is linked to reduced risks for maladjustment in adolescence. Few studies, however, have tested t...

Harsh parenting is a significant predictor of youth aggression and delinquency. However, not every child exposed to adverse parenting develops such problem behaviors. Recent developmental evolutionary models suggest that variability in stress response reactivity to parenting, reflected by autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning, may affect the i...

Harsh parenting is a significant predictor of youth aggression and delinquency. However, not every child exposed to adverse parenting develops such problem behaviors. Recent developmental evolutionary models suggest that variability in stress response reactivity to parenting, reflected by autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning, may affect the i...

Purpose: Clinicians need a broad spectrum measurement of psychoactive substance craving (i.e., alcohol and/or drug) to assess collective treatment effects, especially in the context of polysubstance use. In three separate studies, we investigated the psychometric properties of an adapted version of the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale (PACS), designed t...

Background Heavy episodic drinking (HED) is a major public health problem among emerging adults (individuals 18 to 25), but with considerable heterogeneity in concurrent substance use and psychopathology. The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to detect discrete subgroups of HED based on alcohol, other drug severity, and concurrent ps...

Exposure to adverse parenting experiences, either from being reared under conditions of threat or deprivation, is a major source of chronic stress that is linked to youths’ dysregulated stress responses and impulsive decision-making. Many youth, however, adapt well and develop optimal decision-making despite the experience of adversity. Research ha...

Parental behaviors are potent risk and protective factors for youth development of externalizing problems. Firm control is a parenting strategy that is inconsistently linked to youth adjustment, possibly due to variations in individual biological contexts. Growing research shows that dyadic coregulation of the autonomic nervous system (e.g., parent...

Background While inpatient programs are a common setting for addiction treatment, patients' premature termination is a major concern. Predicting premature treatment termination has the potential to substantially improve patient outcomes by identifying high-risk profiles and suggesting care paths that might reduce dropout. The current study examined...

This study examined how exposure to severe poverty related to behavioral self-regulation growth during early childhood as mediated by parenting practices. Ethnic differences were tested. Data were collected across 4 waves from 359 low-income African American and Latino families. The frequency of exposure to severe poverty was indicated by how many...

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with heightened impulsivity and risk-taking behaviors, including higher rates of substance use than individuals without PTSD. Although a number of studies suggest that impulsivity is associated with substance use in PTSD, the specific role of impulsivity in this common pattern of...

Objectives: Exposure to racism experienced by caregivers poses a threat to child developmental outcomes. The current study examines the effects of caregiver-experienced racism on the development of internalizing behaviors for African American children during a sensitive period in their development of racial awareness. Two aspects of caregiver-provi...

Objective: The present study aimed to test the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in modulating the impact of family stress induced by harsh parenting on youths' inflammation. First, we examined the direct effect of severity of adverse parenting behaviors on two serum biomarkers of systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein and interleukin-...

There is some evidence that cannabis use is associated with lower cognitive performance and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but the existing literature is relatively inconsistent, potentially due to small samples in previous studies. Using a dimensional design, the current study examined cannabis use severity and age of...

Background and objectives: Young adults with childhood maltreatment (CM) histories are particularly vulnerable to depressive symptoms and alcohol use problems. Research suggests that maltreated youth may misuse alcohol in part to alleviate depressive symptoms. However, many youths with depressive symptoms exercise self-control and abstain from hea...

Background and Objectives. Young adults with childhood maltreatment (CM) histories are particularly vulnerable to depressive symptoms and alcohol use problems. Research suggest that maltreated youth may misuse alcohol in part to alleviate depressive symptoms. However, many youths with depressive symptoms exercise self-control and abstain from heavy...

Background: The Acculturative Process and Context Framework (Ward & Geeraert, 2016) proposes that acculturative stressors influence psychological well-being over time. In fact, extant literature has linked bicultural stress with psychological functioning; yet, no studies have explored the causal dominance of bicultural stress. The purpose of the p...

Background and Objectives. Young adults with childhood maltreatment (CM) histories are particularly vulnerable to depressive symptoms and alcohol use problems. Research suggest that maltreated youth may misuse alcohol in part to alleviate depressive symptoms. However, many youths with depressive symptoms exercise self-control and abstain from heavy...

Objective: The present study aimed to test the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in modulating the impact of family stress, induced by harsh parenting, on youths’ inflammation. First, we examined the direct effect of severity of adverse parenting behaviors on two serum biomarkers of systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein and interleukin...

Background Individuals’ social networks exert a strong influence on alcohol use, but valid assessment of network drinking behavior is typically lengthy and high in participant burden. The aim of this study was to validate the Brief Alcohol Social Density Assessment (BASDA), an efficient measure of perceived alcohol use within a person’s social netw...

This cross-sectional study examined behavioral and physiological indicators of the parent-child relationship as moderators of the link between maternal depressive and child psychopathology symptoms. Ninety-seven mothers (M age = 35.38 years) and their 9- to 12-year-old children (M age = 10.32 years, 53.7% girls, 78.1% African American) from economi...

Background: Maternal depression is a widely recognized public health concern with significant implications for child functioning, including the development of negative child affect and risk for later depression. Negative mental representations may partially account for the association between maternal depression and child negative affect. Methods...

Background: Maltreated youth are at an elevated risk for the development of problem behaviors. Coping with the death of a family member or close friend during adolescence, referred to as bereavement, is a stressful event that could potentiate risk linked to maltreatment. However, developmental research suggests that youth adjustment is a product o...

Child maltreatment is a robust risk factor for suicidal ideation and behaviors during adolescence. Elevations in internalizing and externalizing symptomology have been identified as two distinct developmental pathways linking child maltreatment and adolescent risk for suicide. However, recent research suggests that the co-occurrence of internalizin...

This study sought to identify profiles of positive youth development (PYD) integrating racial–ethnic factors, specifically racial–ethnic pride and perceived racial–ethnic barriers in a sample of African American (77%) and Latino (23%) children (N = 234, Mean age = 8). Using a latent profile analysis, we found three profiles: The High PYD, Proud, &...

Background: Previous neuroimaging studies examining relations between alcohol misuse and cortical thickness have revealed that increased drinking quantity and alcohol-related problems are associated with thinner cortex. Although conflicting regional effects are often observed, associations are generally localized to frontal regions (e.g., dorsolat...

Resilience refers to the ability of individuals to thrive in the face of adversity. Extant research shows that resilience is a process that emerges amidst a constellation of risk and protective factors that transact with each other at multiple levels of analyses. Risk and protective factors are shown to either impede or support resilience, respecti...

Background: There is evidence that heavy cannabis use is associated with decrements in cognitive performance, but findings are mixed and studies are often limited by small sample sizes and narrow adjustment for potential confounding variables. In a comparatively large sample, the current study examined associations between multiple indicators of c...

Introduction: Maltreated youth experience chronic stress that can lead to significant risk for the development of problem behaviors across the lifespan (Trickett et al., 2011). Multiple risk and protective factors influence this association between child maltreatment and youth adjustment. Death of a family member or close friend, known as bereaveme...

Child maltreatment is a major threat to child development, as it is documented to increase risks for socioemotional and behavior problems in adolescence. Despite the negative developmental consequences of child maltreatment, many maltreated youths adjust well. Extant research demonstrates that future orientation, defined as youths’ outlook for the...

The aim of the present study was 2-fold: (1) to utilize improved amygdala segmentation and exploratory factor analysis to characterize the latent volumetric structure among amygdala nuclei and (2) to assess the effect of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on amygdalar morphometry and current psychiatric symptoms. To investigate these aims, struct...

Adolescent parents often maintain a coparenting relationship that is characterized by frequent conflict and unhealthy communication. However, in relationships with less conflict and more cooperation, adolescent mothers display well-being and greater self-acceptance, while young fathers are more likely to be involved with their children. Based on hu...

Prolonged exposure to socioeconomic hardship (SH) is associated with greater delayed reward discounting (DRD), a form of impulsive decision-making that reflects a reduced capacity to delay gratification and a significant correlate of diverse risk behaviors, but the neurobehavioral mechanisms linking SH and DRD are unknown. An emerging hypothesis su...

Fragile families are defined as those that include unmarried or romantically unstable parents who have children and are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Mothers in fragile families may experience risk factors that lead to increased depressive symptoms that inhibit their ability to bounce back after stressful events. Risk factors for poorer maternal...

Child maltreatment is associated with a variety of risk behaviors in young adulthood; however, the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms of this relation are not well understood. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the direct and indirect effects between maltreatment in childhood and downstream impulsivity via neural activity d...

Background. Previous neuroimaging studies examining relations between alcohol misuse and cortical thickness have revealed that increased drinking quantity and alcohol use disorder severity are associated with thinner cortex. Although conflicting regional effects are often observed, associations are generally localized to frontal regions (e.g., dors...

Physiological synchrony, or concordance, among caregiver–child dyads involves the matching of biological states. Understanding this process is critical for enhancing our knowledge of the ways that the caregiver–child relationship supports child development. However, the meaning of physiological synchrony for child adjustment is poorly understood. T...

Background: Child maltreatment (CM) is robustly associated with youth risk for addictive behaviors, and recent findings suggest that this may be mediated through impulsive discounting of future rewards. However, research indicates that youth self-regulation (emotional and cognitive), particularly in peer contexts, is critical to consider in the st...

During adolescence, a positive outlook toward the future (i.e., future orientation) can protect youth from the risks conferred by childhood adversity. Research to date, however, has largely considered future orientation as a static attribute. Developmental systems perspectives suggest that future orientation, when considered across time, will exhib...

Researchers found that sexual abuse in childhood leads to increased adolescent depressive symptomatology, though this link may vary due to the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator as well as the age of the child when the abuse began. A sample of 444 sexually abused youth provided data for the National Survey of Child and Adolescent W...

Offspring of mothers diagnosed with major depression are at increased risk for a wide range of psychological problems. Previous research has shown that individual differences in personality development can be informative for predicting risk and resilience to psychopathology, especially within at-risk populations. In the present study, we examined w...

Objective: The relationships between depressive symptoms and alcohol use among maltreated youth have been well documented. However, the direction of these associations remains unclear. Two prevalent but contrasting perspectives on these associations-the self-medication and impaired-functioning hypotheses-have each received extensive support. The p...

Introduction: This study examined the relationships between egg consumption and cortical bone in children. Methods: The cross-sectional study design included 294 9-13-year-old black and white males and females. Three-day diet records determined daily egg consumption. Peripheral quantitative computed tomography measured radius and tibia cortical...

Objectives Childhood maltreatment is associated with risk for suicidal ideation later in life, yet more research is needed on the indirect effects and bioregulatory protective factors in this association. The present study aimed to investigate the indirect influence of childhood maltreatment on suicidal ideation in emerging adulthood via level of s...

Background: Substance use problems are prevalent during emerging adulthood and may be particularly harmful for individuals with medical conditions. Understanding the role of positive temperament in substance use for adolescents and young adults (AYAs) may facilitate the identification of intervention and prevention targets given the complex relati...

ABSTRACT During adolescence, a positive outlook toward the future (i.e., future orientation) can protect youth from the risks conferred by childhood adversity. Research to date, however, has largely considered future orientation as a static attribute. Developmental systems perspectives suggest that future orientation, when considered across time, w...

Ethnic identity formation is a central developmental task that can become challenging when adolescents face a salient stressor, such as ethnic discrimination. Although ethnic identity and experiences with ethnic discrimination are thought to be associated, the temporal order of these constructs is unclear. In the current study, we examined (1) the...

Objectives Diagnosed clinical abruption showing blood clot should be signed out in the pathology report as retroplacental hemorrhage with or without parenchymal indentation, and submitted clot separate from the placenta should be weighed. In our experience, some cases sent as clinical abruptions have been cases of morbid adherence. This study was u...

Resolving tradeoffs between smaller immediate rewards and larger delayed rewards is ubiquitous in daily life and steep discounting of future rewards is associated with several psychiatric conditions. This form of decision-making is referred to as delayed reward discounting (DRD) and the features of brain structure associated with DRD are not well u...

This study examined (a) transition patterns from adolescent‐specific depressive symptom trajectory classes to young adult‐specific trajectory classes ( N = 537; 15–26 years) and (b) identified risk factors associated with these transition patterns. The latent classes and transition analyses identified three transitional patterns of depressive sympt...

Childhood neglect is associated with risk behaviors in adolescence, including substance use. There is evidence that internalizing behaviors may serve as a mechanism linking childhood neglect and substance use; however, further research is needed to examine this developmental pathway. According to developmental and ecological approaches, the neighbo...

Although qualities of mothering behavior have been consistently linked with children’s academic outcomes, mothers from different ethnic groups may emphasize different dimensions with their children. The present investigation aims to evaluate and compare the dimensionality of mothering in low-income African American (n = 151) and Mexican American (n...

Emerging developmental perspectives suggest that adverse rearing environments promote neurocognitive adaptations that heighten impulsivity and increase vulnerability to risky behavior. Although studies document links between harsh rearing environments and impulsive behavior on substance use, the developmental hypothesis that impulsivity acts as mec...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the findings on interpersonal relational processes of Israeli healthcare providers (HCPs) and Syrian patients and caregivers using data collected in two Israeli hospitals. Design/methodology/approach Using a parallel mixed-methods design, data were integrated from observations, interviews, and survey...