Reward sensitivity and internalizing symptoms during the transition to puberty: An examination of 9-and 10-year-olds in the ABCD Study

Early pubertal timing has been linked to increased risk for internalizing disorders. Work in older adolescents and adults suggests that heightened reward sensitivity may buffer risk for internalizing symptoms, but few studies have investigated these associations during the early transition to puberty, a window of vulnerability to mental health risk. In this preregistered study, we investigated the associations among pubertal timing, internalizing symptoms, and reward sensitivity in 11,243 9-10 year-olds from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study®. Using split-half analysis, we tested hypothesized effects across two subsets of the sample (Sample 1 N=5,631 ; Sample 2 N=5,612). Across samples, early pubertal timing was associated with higher internalizing symptoms in females and males, with highest symptoms evident in mid-pubertal adolescents. Additionally, early pubertal timing was robustly associated with greater self-reported reward sensitivity in both females and males. We observed preliminary evidence of a moderating role of self-reported and neural reward sensitivity in the association between early pubertal timing and internalizing symptoms, but several of these effects differed by sex, and no moderation effects replicated across samples. Together, these findings provide novel insights into early indicators of risk for internalizing disorders during the transition to puberty.