About
The goal of my research is to leverage network analysis techniques to uncover how the brain mediates sex hormone influences on gendered behavior across the lifespan. Thus, there are quantitative and substantive components to the work being conducted in the Methods, Sex differences, and Development – M(SD) – lab that I direct. Quantitative work concerns creating and applying connectivity analyses, such as unified structural equation models, to time series data; these are intensive longitudinal data, including functional neuroimages, daily diaries, and observations. Substantive work concerns investigating the links between androgens (e.g., testosterone) and estradiol at key developmental periods, such as puberty, on behaviors that typically show sex differences, including aspects of cognition (e.g., mental rotations and verbal fluency) and psychopathology (e.g., substance use and depression). Most of my research comes from a person-specific perspective, owing to the heterogeneity that exists across people, gendered processes, and time.
Recent Representative Publications
Foster, K. T., & Beltz, A. M. (2018). Advancing statistical analysis of ambulatory assessment data in the study of addictive behavior: A primer on three person-oriented techniques. Addictive Behaviors, 83, 25-44. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2017.12.018
Beltz, A. M. (2018). Gendered mechanisms underlie the relation between pubertal timing and adult depressive symptoms. Journal of Adolescent Health, 62(6), 722-728. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.12.019
Heitzeg, M. M., Hardee, J. E., & Beltz, A. M. (2018). Sex differences in the developmental neuroscience of adolescent substance use risk. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 23, 21-26. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.01.020.
Beltz, A. M. (2018). Connecting theory and methods in adolescent brain research. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 28(1), 10-25. doi: 10.1111/jora.12366
Beltz, A. M., & Gates, K. M. (2017). Network mapping with GIMME. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 52(6), 789-804. doi: 10.1080/00273171.2017.1373014
Beltz, A. M., & Molenaar, P. C. M. (2016). Dealing with multiple solutions in structural vector autoregressive models. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 51(2-3), 357-373. doi: 10.1080/00273171.2016.1151333
Beltz, A. M., Hampson, E., & Berenbaum, S. A. (2015). Oral contraceptives and cognition: A role for ethinyl estradiol. Hormones and Behavior, 74, 209-217. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2015.06.012
