About

Adriene Beltz is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, specializing in neuroimaging, adolescence, developmental psychology, and quantitative methods. Her research aims to leverage network analysis techniques to understand how the brain mediates gonadal hormone influences on behavior across the lifespan. She directs the Methods, Sex differences, and Development – M(SD) – lab, which conducts both quantitative and substantive research. Quantitative work involves creating and applying individualized models, such as temporal network maps, to intensive longitudinal data including functional neuroimages, daily diaries, and observations. Substantive research investigates the links between androgens (e.g., testosterone) and ovarian hormones during key developmental periods like puberty and reproductive years, focusing on sex-related behaviors such as cognition (mental rotations, verbal recall) and psychopathology (substance use, depression). Her approach emphasizes a person-specific perspective, considering heterogeneity across individuals, gendered processes, and time. Before joining the University of Michigan in 2016, Dr. Beltz earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Penn State University, where she specialized in cognitive and affective neuroscience. She also completed two years as a post-doctoral scholar in Human Development and Family Studies, focusing on quantitative network analyses. Her research has been funded by prominent organizations including the National Institutes of Health, Jacobs Foundation, and James S. McDonnell Foundation. She has received early career awards from the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association, as well as teaching and research awards from U-M.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Medicine
• Social psychology
• Psychotherapist
• Environmental health
• Cognitive psychology
• Psychiatry
• Neuroscience
• Demography

Selected publications

• The daily association between affect and alcohol use: A meta-analysis of individual participant data.

  Psychological Bulletin · 2023 · 131 citations

  • Psychology
  • Clinical psychology
  • Social psychology

  = 12,394), which used daily and momentary surveys to assess affect and the number of alcoholic drinks consumed. Results indicate that people are not more likely to drink on days they experience high negative affect, but are more likely to drink and drink heavily on days high in positive affect. People self-reporting a motivational tendency to drink-to-cope and drink-to-enhance consumed more alcohol, but not on days they experienced higher negative and positive affect. Results were robust across different operationalizations of affect, study designs, study populations, and individual characteristics. These findings challenge the long-held belief that people drink more alcohol following increases in negative affect. Integrating these findings under different theoretical models and limitations of this field of research, we collectively propose an agenda for future research to explore open questions surrounding affect and alcohol use.

  PublisherDOI

• Person-specific connectivity mapping uncovers differences of bilingual language experience on brain bases of attention in children

  Brain and Language · 2022 · 18 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Association of Childhood Violence Exposure With Adolescent Neural Network Density

  JAMA Network Open · 2020 · 51 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Demography

  Importance: Adverse childhood experiences are a public health issue with negative sequelae that persist throughout life. Current theories suggest that adverse childhood experiences reflect underlying dimensions (eg, violence exposure and social deprivation) with distinct neural mechanisms; however, research findings have been inconsistent, likely owing to variability in how the environment interacts with the brain. Objective: To examine whether dimensional exposure to childhood adversity is associated with person-specific patterns in adolescent resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), defined as synchronized activity across brain regions when not engaged in a task. Design, Setting, and Participants: A sparse network approach in a large sample with substantial representation of understudied, underserved African American youth was used to conduct an observational, population-based longitudinal cohort study. A total of 183 adolescents aged 15 to 17 years from Detroit, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; and Chicago, Illinois, who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study were eligible for inclusion. Environmental data from birth to adolescence were collected via telephone and in-person interviews, and neuroimaging data collected at a university lab. The study was conducted from February 1, 1998, to April 26, 2017, and data analysis was performed from January 3, 2019, to May 22, 2020. Exposures: Composite variables representing violence exposure and social deprivation created from primary caregiver reports on children at ages 3, 5, and 9 years. Main Outcomes and Measures: Resting-state functional connectivity person-specific network metrics (data-driven subgroup membership, density, and node degree) focused on connectivity among a priori regions of interest in 2 resting-state networks (salience network and default mode) assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results: Of the 183 eligible adolescents, 175 individuals (98 girls [56%]) were included in the analysis; mean (SD) age was 15.88 (0.53) years and 127 participants (73%) were African American. Adolescents with high violence exposure were 3.06 times more likely (95% CI, 1.17-8.92) to be in a subgroup characterized by high heterogeneity (few shared connections) and low network density (sparsity). Childhood violence exposure, but not social deprivation, was associated with reduced rsFC density (β = -0.25; 95% CI, -0.41 to -0.05; P = .005), with fewer salience network connections (β = -0.26; 95% CI, -0.43 to -0.08; P = .005) and salience network-default mode connections (β = -0.20; 95% CI, -0.38 to -0.03; P = .02). Violence exposure was associated with node degree of right anterior insula (β = -0.29; 95% CI, -0.47 to -0.12; P = .001) and left inferior parietal lobule (β = -0.26; 95% CI, -0.44 to -0.09; P = .003). Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this study suggest that childhood violence exposure is associated with adolescent neural network sparsity. A community-detection algorithm, blinded to child adversity, grouped youth exposed to heightened violence based only on patterns of rsFC. The findings may have implications for understanding how dimensions of adverse childhood experiences impact individualized neural development.

  DOI

• Consensus Parameter: Research Methodologies to Evaluate Neurodevelopmental Effects of Pubertal Suppression in Transgender Youth

  Transgender Health · 2020 · 43 citations

  • Psychology
  • Clinical psychology
  • Developmental psychology

  An international interdisciplinary team of experts achieved consensus around primary methods and domains for assessing neurodevelopmental effects (i.e., benefits and/or difficulties) of pubertal suppression treatment in transgender youth.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sheri A. Berenbaum

  Pennsylvania State University

  30 shared

• Dominic P. Kelly

  University College London

  16 shared

• Kathleen M. Gates

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  16 shared

• Alexander Weigard

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  15 shared

• Peter C. M. Molenaar

  15 shared

• Katherine T. Foster

  University of Washington

  11 shared

• Robin P. Corley

  9 shared

• Aidan G.C. Wright

  9 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  Pennsylvania State University

  2014

• M.S., Psychology

  Saint Joseph's University

  2009

• B.S., Psychology

  Saint Joseph's University

  2008

Awards & honors

• Early career awards from the Association for Psychological S…
• Early career awards from the American Psychological Associat…

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