How childhood stress and puberty shape brain development and mental health
Official title: Biological embedding of dimensional adversity: Developmental pathways toward psychopathology
Funded at Father Flanagan's Boys' Home · NIH-11333268 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at how different kinds of early-life stress and the changes of puberty affect brain development and later mental health in children and teens.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Father Flanagan's Boys' Home NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Boys Town, United States) |
| Project start | March 1, 2022 |
| Project end | January 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $304,437 |
| NIH project number | 5P20GM144641-05 |
| Project ID | NIH-11333268 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are children and adolescents who have experienced early-life stress or adversity and whose families can attend study visits, provide samples, and complete questionnaires over time.
✕Less likely to help
People without a history of early-life adversity or adults who are well past pubertal development are unlikely to receive direct benefit from this research.
What this research studies
Researchers aim to understand how different kinds of childhood stress shape the brain and raise the risk for mental health problems. They will follow children and adolescents through key developmental windows, collecting information about life experiences, hormone changes from biological samples, brain imaging, and behavioral measures. The team will group types of adversity (for example, threat, neglect, and unpredictability) and link each to specific biological and neural pathways. The goal is to identify when and how interventions might prevent or reduce later emotional and cognitive difficulties.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could help identify biological signals and time windows when prevention or early interventions may best protect children from long-term mental-health problems.
How similar studies have gone: Prior studies have linked specific adversity types to brain and mental-health changes, but using pubertal biology as a central pathway is a newer approach that is still being tested.
Where this research is happening
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Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
Boys Town, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Picci, Giorgia — Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
- Study coordinator: Picci, Giorgia
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.