About BRANCH
The BRANCH study aims to work with rural families to understand how families and communities promote strength and resilience to protect their youth from the ways in which stress influences behavioral risk for addictive behaviors, such as substance use.
What are we studying?
We want to learn more about the strength of rural families and communities in Georgia and how they are helping their children's development. The Georgia Center for Developmental Science is looking for families with 6.5-9 year old children to participate in a three-part research study. Families will be compensated up to $390 for completing all stages.
Study parts:
Participants will play games together and answer surveys at the family’s home. Child will provide a saliva sample. Participants will wear sleep trackers and self-report mood online for 1-2 weeks before MRI visit. Participants will visit UGA’s Bioimaging Research Center (BIRC) for the child to receive a safe MRI scan. Guardian will fill out surveys.
Part 1: Family visit (2 hr) & MRI scan* (2 hr)
Part 2: MRI scan (2hr)
18 months later, participants will visit UGA for the child to receive a safe follow-up MRI scan. Guardian will fill out surveys. Participants in this study will be the child and a legal guardian of the child.
Part 3: Follow-up survey (1 hr, online)
18 months later, child and guardian will each take a follow-up survey.
*MRIs do not use any radiation
Take a look at our timeline of the BRANCH Study so you can know what to expect!
Learn more about MRIs!
We love to learn more about all of the cool things the brain can do. To do this, we take pictures using an MRI machine. MRIs are one of the safest ways to take pictures of the body. The machine uses magnets to get precise pictures of the brain, so no radiation is used.
The MRI can be very loud, but we provide earplugs to children and their caregivers during the scan to help!
Here is a tour of our facility and a brief summary of what a visit to the imaging center looks like!
