Summer Research Roundup

In this Research Roundup, we provide an overview of recent research about adolescent development that highlights how neighborhoods affect sleep, the link between prosocial behavior and school performance, the differences in perceived racial discrimination across locations in the United States, and the impact of specific types of adversity on adolescent brain development.

Sign up to receive the quarterly research roundup in your inbox. You can suggest research articles for future roundups by emailing CDA@psych.ucla.edu.

In this Roundup

• The impact of neighborhood disadvantage on sleep changes between childhood and adolescence​
• The link between helping behaviors and school performance during adolescence across cultures
• Effects of location on adolescents’ experiences of racial discrimination in the United States
• The effects of different types of adverse childhood experiences on adolescent brain development

Research

The impact of neighborhood disadvantage on sleep changes between childhood and adolescence

(Sleep Health, May 2025)

Sufficient and restful sleep is essential to healthy adolescent development. Research has found that people who live in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods sleep less and experience more sleep disturbances on average. However, few studies have examined whether these associations between neighborhood disadvantage and sleep change between childhood and adolescence. In this study, Thomas Fuller-Rowell and colleagues investigated the relationship between neighborhood economic disadvantage and sleep in childhood and adolescence. The researchers examined the sleep patterns of 339 youth during childhood (average age about 10 years old) and again in a subset of 167 of the same youth when they were adolescents (average age just over 17 years old). At each timepoint, participants wore wrist monitors for seven consecutive nights. Researchers found that sleep patterns changed between childhood and adolescence: Participants slept fewer hours in adolescence, but also had more efficient sleep compared to when they were younger—meaning that they spent more time actually sleeping between falling asleep and waking with fewer “long wake episodes” in which they were awake for five minutes or longer in the night.

However, the sleep quality of youth residing in neighborhoods with greater socioeconomic disadvantage improved less as they got older compared to youth in neighborhoods with more resources. Researchers also found racial disparities in these patterns–Black children who lived in highly economically disadvantaged neighborhoods experienced less decrease in long-wake episodes between childhood and adolescence. Together, these findings highlight how childhood neighborhoods and racial inequities may shape sleep outcomes as youth progress from childhood to adolescence.

Why this is important: This research provides important insights into how sleep patterns change as youth transition from childhood into adolescence and also sheds light on how neighborhood disadvantage may impact adolescent sleep–which is critical to physical and mental health during this formative period of development.

The link between helping behaviors and school performance during adolescence across cultures

(Applied Developmental Science, May 2025)

Studies have found that prosocial behavior—voluntary actions intended to benefit other people, such as helping or sharing—is associated with a range of beneficial outcomes during adolescence. In this study of 884 adolescents from six countries (Colombia, Italy, Jordan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States), Flavia Cirimele and colleagues examined associations between prosocial behavior and school performance over three time points, spanning from when participants were 10 to 16 years old. They found that youth who reported higher levels of prosocial behavior tended to perform better in school (averaged across reading, math, social studies, and science performance) across time. They also found that at time points when an adolescent reported being more prosocial than usual, they also performed better in school than usual. These effects remained after adjusting for differences in the socioeconomic status of their countries of residence. Together, these findings suggest that, across countries with diverse cultures and economic landscapes, prosocial behaviors and educational achievement are interrelated during adolescence.

Why this is important: By studying a large sample of adolescents from countries throughout the world, this research showcases a connection between prosocial behavior and school performance during adolescence across diverse cultural and national contexts. These patterns suggest that prosocial behaviors and academic achievement may benefit each other and support healthy development.

Effects of location on adolescents’ experiences of racial discrimination in the United States

(Journal of Adolescent Health, July 2025)

Research has found that youth experience increasing messaging about race as they enter adolescence and that young people are particularly susceptible to the negative effects of perceived racial discrimination during this stage. Using longitudinal data from over 4,000 youth in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, Christopher Fields and colleagues investigated how levels of perceived discrimination changed between the ages of 10 to 14 and examined whether these patterns differed based on neighborhood or state-level factors. At three time points, participants reported whether they had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment based on their race, ethnicity, or skin color in the past year. The researchers found that non-Hispanic Black, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and multiracial youth reported experiencing significantly increasing rates of discrimination over time, while non-Hispanic White and Native American youth reported that their experiences of discrimination decreased. Additionally, Hispanic youth with immigrant backgrounds reported experiencing more discrimination. Youth living in areas with highly segregated, economically disadvantaged Black households and in states with high anti-Black bias reported greater discrimination, suggesting that structural racism at neighborhood and state level in part shapes experiences of discrimination during adolescence.

Why this is important: We know that discrimination negatively impacts well-being during adolescence. By showing how perceived discrimination increases for young people across multiple racial groups throughout the United States, this work emphasizes the importance of efforts at the community and state levels to decrease adolescents’ experiences of discrimination.

The effects of different types of adverse childhood experiences on adolescent brain development

(Translational Psychiatry, May 2025)

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been found to have lasting effects on the brain. However, it is unclear how different types of adversity uniquely affect the developing brain. In this study, Yumeng Yang and colleagues examined how different forms of adversity related to brain development in a sample of 5,885 adolescents from the ABCD Study over four years, beginning when participants were between 9 and 10 years old. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers examined functional connectivity, the process by which different brain regions work together and communicate via networks in the brain. The researchers examined whether different forms of adversity predicted differences in how these networks developed during early adolescence. They looked at the effects of both interpersonal adversity (caregiving disruptions, caregiver mental health challenges, maltreatment, and interpersonal trauma) and socioeconomic adversity (low family socioeconomic status, community violence, neighborhood trauma, and neighborhood poverty). Adolescents who had experienced both categories of adversity–more unpredictable or disrupted caregiving, as well as living in high-poverty neighborhoods–showed accelerated development in brain networks that support emotion regulation and executive functioning. The earlier maturation of these networks was associated with decreased performance on cognitive tasks. Together, these findings suggest that the adolescent brain may adapt to stress by accelerating brain development in ways that can negatively affect aspects of cognition.

Why this matters: During adolescence, connections between regions of the brain mature rapidly, enabling our brains to work more efficiently as we develop and learn about the world around us. By demonstrating how adversity may alter this developmental process, this work provides further evidence that stable, supportive caregiving environments and resourced neighborhoods are essential for healthy adolescent brain development. Policies that support consistent and reliable caregiving and provide resources to disadvantaged neighborhoods may be especially effective in supporting adolescents who have experienced adversity.