Crum Lab

The laboratory research team led by Kathleen I. Crum, PhD, who runs the Lifespan Resiliency After Family Trauma (LifeRAFT) Program. LifeRAFT’s mission is to research how stress can have an impact across generations by influencing brain development, behavior and caregiver-child relationships. The team uses behavioral and neurobiological measures, such as MRI and polygenic risk, to answer these research questions.

Dr. Crum collaborates with other IU School of Medicine colleagues through the Adolescent Behavioral Health Research Program as well as scientists at Medical University of South Carolina, Boys Town National Research Hospital and the University of Copenhagen.

Read Dr. Crum's Bio

Research

The Crum research team is made up of scientists, clinicians and trainees who are currently setting up several projects, including research on how early life stress influences risk for substance use and other problematic outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.

The largest anticipated research project asks the question, “How does parental stress from difficult life experiences combine with parental substance use to influence children’s brain function and behavior?” This project will recruit several groups of parents and their children between the ages of 10 to 14. Parents to be included in the research project will be those with stress related to difficult life experiences, problematic substance use, and both, as well as parents without either of these difficulties. Children will undergo an MRI scan and all participants will answer questionnaires and sit for brief interviews.

Participants will complete one in-person visit with six- and twelve-moth follow-up questionnaires.

Participants can earn up to $309.40.

What is Involved if I participate?

Parents will complete a brief screening phone call to determine eligibility of them and their child.
If both the parent and child are eligible for the study, then they will be invited to attend an in-person study visit.

The study visit will involve the following:
You and your child will both be asked to answer questions and fill out surveys about things that have happened in your lives and thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
You and your child will provide urine and saliva samples.
Your child will do activities while getting a brain scan in the MRI machine.

More information on this study is available at the link below. Please don't hesitate to reach out to the team with any questions at: LifeRAFT@iu.edu or (317)278-5433.

Children Ages 10-14 and Their Parents Needed For Life Events, Brain, and Behavior Study!

Contact the team

Select Publications

Crum, K.I., Bixler, K., & Hulvershorn, L. (2023.) Applying functional MRI to study adolescent substance use. In: Translational Research Methods for Alcohol Use Disorders (pp.79-89), M. Cyders (Ed): NeuroMethods Book Series (vol. 201). New York, NY: Springer U.S.

Crum, K.I., Aloi, J., Zimet, G.D., Aalsma, M.C., Smoker, M.P., Korin, T.E., Murray, O.K., Marimirofa, C.E., & Hulvershorn, L.A. (2023). Profiles of HIV-related knowledge and neurocognitive factors in at-risk adolescents. Children’s Health Care, 1-22. doi: 10.1080/02739615.2023.223133

Crum, K.I., Aloi, J., Blair, K.S., Bashford-Largo, J., Bajaj, S., Zhang, R., Hwang, S., Elowsky, J., Filbey, F.M., Dobbertin, M., & Blair, R.J.R. (2023). Latent profiles of substance use, early life stress, and attention/externalizing problems and their association with neural correlates of reinforcement learning in adolescents. Psychological Medicine, 1-10. doi: 10.1017/S0033291723000971

Crum, K. I., Flanagan, J.C., Vaughan, B., Aloi, J., Moran-Santa Maria, Back, S., Brady, K. T., & Joseph, J. (2021). Oxytocin, PTSD, and sexual abuse are associated with attention network intrinsic functional connectivity. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2021.111345

Aloi, J, Crum, KI, Blair, KS, Zhang, R, Bashford-Largo, J, Bajaj, S, Schwartz, A, Carollo, E, Hwang, S, Leiker, E, Filbey, FM, Averbeck, BB, Dobbertin, M, and Blair, RJR. (2021). Individual associations of adolescent alcohol use disorder versus cannabis use disorder symptoms in neural prediction error signaling and the response to novelty. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100944.

Moreland, A. D., Crum, K. I., Rostad, W., Stefanescu, A., & Whitaker, D. (2021). Examining the moderating effects of substance use on the effectiveness of an in-home behavioral parent training protocol among parents in child welfare. Child Maltreatment. E-publication ahead of print. doi: 10.1177/10775595211046940

Crum, K. I., & Hulvershorn, L. (2020). Editorial: Heavy adolescent alcohol use: An accelerant of impulsivity? Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2020.12.018

Crum, K. I., Hwang, S., Blair, K. S., Aloi, J., Meffert, H., White, S., Tyler, P. M., Leibenluft, E., Pope, K. H., & Blair, R. J. R. (2020). Interaction of irritability and anxiety on emotional responding and emotion regulation: A functional MRI study. Psychological Medicine. doi: 10.1017/S0033291720001397

Crum, K. I., Cornacchio, D., Coxe, S., Greif Green, J., & Comer, J. S. (2018). A latent profile analysis of co-occurring youth posttraumatic stress and conduct problems following community trauma. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(11), 3638-3649. doi: 10.1007/s10826-018-1205-2

Crum, K. I., & Moreland, A.D. (2017). Parental stress and children's social and behavioral outcomes: The role of abuse potential over time. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 3067-3078. doi: 10.1007/s10826-017-0822-5

Cornacchio, D., Crum, K. I., Coxe, S., Pincus, D. B., & Comer, J. S. (2016). Irritability and severity of anxious symptomatology among youth with anxiety disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 55(1), 54-61. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2015.10.007

Crum, K. I., Cornacchio, D., Greif Green, J., Coxe, S., & Comer, J. S. (2015). Conduct problems among youth exposed to the Boston Marathon attack: The moderating role of violent crime exposure. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 46(3), 343-352. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2015.1077450

Crum, K. I., Waschbusch, D. A., Bagner, D., & Coxe, S. (2015). Effects of callous-unemotional traits on the association between parenting and child conduct problems. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 46(6), 967-980. doi: 10.1007/s10578-015-0535-1

Crum, K. I., Waschbusch, D. A., & Willoughby, M. T. (2015). Callous-unemotional traits influence the nature of the student-teacher relationship and its association with long-term outcomes. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 24, 16-29. doi: 10.1177/1063426615569533