Scholars@Duke
Julia Corwin Schechter

Julia Corwin Schechter

Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Psychiatry, Child & Family Mental Health & Community Psychiatry

Selected Publications

Prenatal and Childhood Smoke Exposure Associations with Cognition, Language, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Journal Article J Pediatr · May 2023 OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationships of prenatal and childhood smoke exposure with specific neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems during early childhood. STUDY DESIGN: A subsample (n = 386) of mother-child dyads from the Newborn Epigenetic Study (NE ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sleep onset, duration, or regularity: which matters most for child adiposity outcomes?

Conference Int J Obes (Lond) · August 2022 BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Sleep measures, such as duration and onset timing, are associated with adiposity outcomes among children. Recent research among adults has considered variability in sleep and wake onset times, with the Sleep Regularity Index (SRI) as ... Full text Link to item Cite

Parenting Stress, Child Weight-Related Behaviors, and Child Weight Status.

Journal Article Child Obes · April 2022 Background: There has been limited examination of the association between parenting stress and child weight-related behaviors. We aimed to determine whether parenting stress is associated with child weight-related behaviors, including physical activity, sc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Shuffle the Decks: Children Are Sensitive to Incidental Nonrandom Structure in a Sequential-Choice Task.

Journal Article Psychol Sci · April 2022 As children age, they can learn increasingly complex features of environmental structure-a key prerequisite for adaptive decision-making. Yet when we tested children (N = 304, 4-13 years old) in the Children's Gambling Task, an age-appropriate variant of t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Identifying the Best Questions for Rapid Screening of Secondhand Smoke Exposure Among Children.

Journal Article Nicotine Tob Res · June 8, 2021 INTRODUCTION: Many children suffer from secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe), which leads to a variety of negative health consequences. However, there is no consensus on how clinicians can best query parents for possible SHSe among children. We employed a data ... Full text Link to item Cite

Smoke-Free Home Rules and Association with Child Secondhand Smoke Exposure among Mother-Child Dyad Relationships.

Journal Article Int J Environ Res Public Health · May 14, 2021 Smoke-free home rules restrict smoking in the home, but biomarkers of secondhand smoke exposure are needed to help understand the association between smoke-free homes and child secondhand smoke exposure. Participants (n = 346) were majority Black/African A ... Full text Link to item Cite

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the explore/exploit trade-off.

Journal Article Neuropsychopharmacology · February 2021 The ability to maximize rewards and minimize the costs of obtaining them is vital to making advantageous explore/exploit decisions. Exploratory decisions are theorized to be greater among individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), po ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms and eating behaviors in early childhood.

Journal Article Pediatr Obes · July 2020 BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms have been linked with eating behaviors and obesity adolescence and young adulthood. Yet, little is known about whether these associations occur during early childhood and few studies have ... Full text Link to item Cite

Effect of Prenatal Smoke Exposure on Birth Weight: The Moderating Role of Maternal Depressive Symptoms.

Journal Article Nicotine Tob Res · January 27, 2020 INTRODUCTION: Both prenatal smoke exposure and depression have been linked to lower birth weight, a risk factor for morbidity and mortality. Few studies have looked at the interaction between these risk factors and none have used a biomarker to objectively ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Methylphenidate increases willingness to perform effort in adults with ADHD.

Journal Article Pharmacol Biochem Behav · August 2019 BACKGROUND: A reduced willingness to perform effort based on the magnitude and probability of potential rewards has been associated with diminished dopamine function and may be relevant to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, we investiga ... Full text Link to item Cite

An Automated Text-Messaging Platform for Enhanced Retention and Data Collection in a Longitudinal Birth Cohort: Cohort Management Platform Analysis.

Journal Article JMIR Public Health Surveill · April 2, 2019 BACKGROUND: Traditional methods for recruiting and maintaining contact with participants in cohort studies include print-based correspondence, which can be unidirectional, labor intensive, and slow. Leveraging technology can substantially enhance communica ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between imprinted gene differentially methylated regions, appetitive traits and body mass index in children.

Journal Article Pediatr Obes · February 2019 BACKGROUND: Knowledge regarding genetic influences on eating behaviours is expanding; yet less is known regarding contributions of epigenetic variation to appetitive traits and body mass index (BMI) in children. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to ... Full text Link to item Cite

An Automated Text-Messaging Platform for Enhanced Retention and Data Collection in a Longitudinal Birth Cohort: Cohort Management Platform Analysis (Preprint)

Journal Article · July 23, 2018 BACKGROUNDTraditional methods for recruiting and maintaining contact with participants in cohort studies include print-based correspondence, which can be unidirectional, labor intensive, ... Full text Cite

Associations between maternal cytokine levels during gestation and measures of child cognitive abilities and executive functioning.

Journal Article Brain Behav Immun · May 2018 Preclinical studies demonstrate that environmentally-induced alterations in inflammatory cytokines generated by the maternal and fetal immune system can significantly impact fetal brain development. Yet, the relationship between maternal cytokines during g ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of Smoking Ban on Passive Smoke Exposure in Pregnant Non-Smokers in the Southeastern United States.

Journal Article Int J Environ Res Public Health · January 6, 2018 Prenatal passive smoke exposure raises risk for negative birth outcomes. Legislation regulating public smoking has been shown to impact exposure levels, though fewer studies involving pregnant women have been conducted within the U.S. where bans are incons ... Full text Link to item Cite

Adolescent Physiological and Behavioral Patterns of Emotion Dysregulation Predict Multisystemic Therapy Response.

Journal Article J Emot Behav Disord · September 2017 This study examined whether physiological and behavioral indicators of emotion dysregulation assessed over the course of Multisystemic Therapy (MST) were related to treatment response. Participants were 180 ethnically diverse adolescents (n=120 males), ran ... Full text Link to item Cite

Maternal Prenatal Psychological Distress and Preschool Cognitive Functioning: the Protective Role of Positive Parental Engagement.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · February 2017 Considerable animal research and available human studies suggest that psychological distress experienced by mothers during gestation is associated with later neurodevelopmental deficits in offspring; however, little research has examined potential protecti ... Full text Link to item Cite

Disrupted expected value signaling in youth with disruptive behavior disorders to environmental reinforcers.

Journal Article J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry · May 2014 OBJECTIVE: Youth with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD), including conduct disorder (CD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), have difficulties in reinforcement-based decision making, the neural basis of which is poorly understood. Studies examining ... Full text Link to item Cite

Perinatal factors, parenting behavior, and reactive aggression: does cortisol reactivity mediate this developmental risk process?

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · November 2012 Little is known about the mechanisms of action that link perinatal risk and the development of aggressive behavior. The aim of this study was to examine whether perinatal risk and parenting interacted to specifically predict reactive aggression, as opposed ... Full text Link to item Cite

Stress, cortisol, and externalizing behavior in adolescent males: an examination in the context of multisystemic therapy.

Journal Article J Abnorm Child Psychol · August 2012 Stress and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation have been associated with externalizing behavior in adolescence, but few studies have examined these factors in a treatment context. This study investigated the relationship between stress, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reduced amygdala response in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits: decreased emotional response versus increased top-down attention to nonemotional features.

Journal Article Am J Psychiatry · July 2012 OBJECTIVE: Amygdala dysfunction has been reported to exist in youths and adults with psychopathic traits. However, there has been disagreement as to whether this dysfunction reflects a primary emotional deficit or is secondary to atypical attentional contr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reduced amygdala-orbitofrontal connectivity during moral judgments in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits.

Journal Article Psychiatry Res · December 30, 2011 We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate dysfunction in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits during a moral judgment task. Fourteen adolescents with psych ... Full text Link to item Cite

Do adolescent offspring of women with PTSD experience higher levels of chronic and episodic stress?

Journal Article J Trauma Stress · August 2011 Offspring of mothers with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at higher risk for a range of negative developmental outcomes, including differing forms of psychopathology. This study suggests that the multigenerational impact of trauma may be partially ... Full text Link to item Cite

Perinatal risk factors in the development of aggression and violence.

Journal Article Adv Genet · 2011 Over the past several decades, the relative contribution of both environmental and genetic influences in the development of aggression and violence has been explored extensively. Only fairly recently, however, has it become increasingly evident that early ... Full text Link to item Cite