Leveraging bifactor modeling to test prospective direct and indirect effects of adolescent alcohol use and externalizing symptoms on the development of task-general executive functioning

Adolescence is a period of substantial maturation in brain regions underlying Executive Functioning (EF). Adolescence is also associated with initiation and escalation of Alcohol Use (AU), and adolescent AU has been proposed to produce physiological and neurobiological events that derail healthy EF development. However, support has been mixed, which may be due to (1) failure to consider co-occurring externalizing symptoms (including other drug use) and poor social adaptation, and (2) heterogeneity and psychometric limitations in EF measures. We aimed to clarify the AU-EF association by: (1) distinguishing general externalizing symptoms from specific symptoms (AU, aggression, drug use) using bifactor modeling, (2) testing prospective associations between general externalizing symptoms and specific symptoms, and task-general EF, as indexed by a well-validated computational modeling framework (diffusion decision model), and (3) examining indirect pathways from externalizing symptoms to deficits in task-general EF through poor social adaptation. A high-risk longitudinal sample (<i>N</i> = 919) from the Michigan Longitudinal Study was assessed at four time-points spanning early adolescence (10-13 years) to young adulthood (22-25). Results suggested a critical role of social adaptation within peer and school contexts in promoting healthy EF. There was no evidence that specific, neurotoxic effects of alcohol or drug use derailed task-general EF development.