Welcome to Teen Experiences, Emotions and Neuroendocrinology (TEEN) Lab!
Adolescence is the transitional period from childhood to adulthood, characterized as a period of growth and resilience. Paradoxically, morbidity and mortality increase markedly over the transition to adolescence making it also a period of risk and vulnerability. To resolve this paradox, TEEN Lab examines cognitive-affective processes supported by frontal-striatal brain circuits by taking interdisciplinary approaches.
To this end, we use publicly accessible big data and multi-modal neuroimaging methods including electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), along with clinical, behavioral and hormone methods. Our research program seeks to address two primary questions. First, we seek to characterize normal developmental trajectories of the frontal-striatal brain regions supporting cognitive-affective processes from childhood to adolescence as a function of pubertal development. Second, we use such knowledge gained from the first line of research as a template to elucidate how individual differences (e.g., reward sensitivity) and psychosocial factors (e.g., urbanicity, stressful life events, social media use) may lead to adolescents’ risky behavior (e.g., substance use) and the development of psychopathology in adolescence.
Contact Us
Dr. Chung is committed to engaging underrepresented students in her interdisciplinary research programs. She is seeking highly motivated undergraduate/graduate students interested in significantly enhancing neuroscience and/or data science research experiences through various fellowship programs offered at Kean University:
NIH Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-Rise) Program
The TEEN lab is an interdisciplinary research team. We are seeking undergraduate and graduate volunteers from various STEM fields, such as computer science, psychology, and biology. Prior experience with IRB submissions, Qualtrics, and programming (e.g., R, Python) is a big plus. If you are interested in joining us, please send your resume highlighting relevant research skills to Dr. Chung at ychung@kean.edu.