Brenden Tervo-Clemmens

Research Focus

Dr. Tervo-Clemmens’ research aims to understand normative brain development and the emergence of mental health and substance use disorders during adolescence, integrating techniques from developmental cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, and computational methods. Substantive interests of the Tervo-Clemmens (T-C) Lab are the neurodevelopment of adolescent executive function (goal directed cognition), impulsivity, and risk-taking (and their interrelationships) in normative and clinical populations. The T-C Lab is also engaged in methodological research aiming to evaluate and improve the reproducibility and ultimately, clinical and policy utility, of fMRI and behavioral assessments in neurodevelopmental studies.

My plans for the fellowship period

During the Jacobs Fellowship, my team and I will collect real-world, day-to-day fluctuations in adolescent’s executive function (goal directed cognition) using smartphones and measure underlying functional brain mechanisms using longitudinal precision brain imaging. Such techniques, and collaboration with the broader Jacobs Foundation network, will allow us to understand factors that can optimize learning and inform developmental policies and educational practices for adolescents.

How will my work change children’s and youth’s lives?

These studies have the potential to impact our understanding of factors that can optimize learning in adolescence to inform developmental policies and educational practices. For example, insights on variability across adolescence are necessary to tailor executive function (EF) and educational interventions to this developmental period, which is understudied compared to childhood. Likewise, the improved focus on within-person short-term EF changes across days in this project will better align EF research towards the daily activities in the classroom that are targets of intervention and policy. Finally, our open science and improved within-person methodological efforts, together with an expanded collaborative network through the Jacobs foundation, can provide key tools for a range of additional applications in development and learning.