Disrupted Expected Value and Prediction Error Signaling in Youths With Disruptive Behavior Disorders During a Passive Avoidance Task

Abstract

Objective Youths with disruptive behavior disorders, including conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, show major impairments in reinforcement-based decision making. However, the neural basis of these difficulties remains poorly understood. This partly reflects previous failures to differentiate responses during decision making and feedback processing and to take advantage of computational model-based functional MRI (fMRI). Method Participants were 38 community youths ages 10–18 (20 had disruptive behavior disorders, and 18 were healthy comparison youths). Model-based fMRI was used to assess the computational processes involved in decision making and feedback processing in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, insula, and caudate. Results Youths with disruptive behavior disorders showed reduced use of expected value information within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when choosing to respond and within the anterior insula when choosing not to respond. In addition, they showed reduced responsiveness to positive prediction errors and increased responsiveness to negative prediction errors within the caudate during feedback. Conclusions This study is the first to determine impairments in the use of expected value within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and insula during choice and in prediction error-signaling within the caudate during feedback in youths with disruptive behavior disorders.

Dissociable relations between amygdala subregional networks and psychopathy trait dimensions in conduct‐disordered juvenile offenders

“…Our finding, however, may equally well allude to intrinsically heightened threshold for activating the reward system (i.e., hyporesponsivity), which could actually diminish reward sensitivity in some cases. Reward system hyporesponsivity to certain rewarding stimuli has indeed been theorized in relation to psychopathic traits, and assumed to impair reward representation and stimulus‐reward learning [Cohn et al, 2014; Finger et al, 2011; White et al, 2013]. Overall, our finding thus seems suggestive of a putative mechanism for biased reward processing in people with interpersonal traits of psychopathy, which speculatively could fuel instrumental antisocial interactions to satisfy personal desires and needs.…”

Brain imaging research on psychopathy: Implications for punishment, prediction, and treatment in youth and adults

“…This shows that psychopathic traits are associated with abnormal processing of reinforcement information. White et al (2013) found abnormal ventromedial prefrontal cortex functioning in CD children during a decision making task, but found no differences between subjects with high or low CU traits. Finger et al (2011) compared teenage subjects with DBD disorders (mean age=14.1 years) to healthy controls (mean age=13.1 years) and found hypoactivity in the orbitofrontal cortex in response to early stimulus-reinforcement exposure and rewards.…”

The full translational spectrum of prevention science: facilitating the transfer of knowledge to practices and policies that prevent behavioral health problems

“…Youth with CU traits, however, also appear to derive positive rewards from deviant behavior (e.g., social status from bullying [35]) and fail to encode outcomes that violate societal expectancies [36,37]. In addition, youth with CU traits show significant disruption in processing punishment information [38,39]. This evidence suggests that high CU youth are more likely to initiate early, escalate, and/or persist in deviant behaviors because they are less mindful of its negative consequences [40][41][42][43][44].…”

“…T0 research has further shown that these deficits are neurally subserved by abnormalities in the "motivational network" (mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathways) that mediates reward-based decision-making [30,45]. Neuroimaging studies have related the decision-making impairment in CU youth to reduced representation of expected value within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (how much reward/ punishment is associated with a response choice) and prediction error signaling within caudate (signaling the difference between the reward expected and that received) [39]. These data suggest a neurobiological mechanism that may explain why CU youth would exhibit poorer and slower learning of reinforcements associated with objects and actions.…”