Early Caregiving Adversity Differentially Shapes Behavioral Sensitivity to Reward and Risk during Decision-Making

Abstract

<p>Cognitive systems that track, update, and utilize information about reward (consequences) and risk (uncertainty) are critical for adaptive decision-making as well as everyday functioning and wellbeing. However, little is known about what shapes individual differences in reward and risk sensitivity, independent of each other, during decision-making. Here, we investigate the impact of early life experience—a potent sculptor of development—on behavioral sensitivity to reward and risk. We administered a widely used decision-making paradigm to 62 adolescents and young adults exposed to early life adversity in the form of institutional orphanage care and 81 comparison individuals. Leveraging random coefficient regression and computational modeling, we observed that previously institutionalized individuals displayed general reward hyposensitivity, contributing to a decreased propensity for adaptive decision-making relative to comparison individuals (e.g., when prospective rewards are high). By contrast, group differences in risk sensitivity were selectively observed on loss, but not gain, trials. These results are the first to independently and explicitly link early experiences to reward and risk sensitivity during decision-making. As such, they lay the groundwork for therapeutic efforts to identify and treat adversity-exposed individuals at risk for psychiatric disorders characterized by aberrant decision-making processes.</p>

Accumbofrontal tract integrity is related to early life adversity and feedback learning

“…Of note, while past investigations in adversity exposed samples have noted lower brain activity to positive feedback and stimuli [21,54,66], we did not find connections between positive feedback sensitivity, adversity, and white matter integrity. This may be due to the current paradigm's inability to parse information about feedback valence (i.e., positive/negative) from uncertainty and risk (e.g., likelihood of winning versus not) [71]. Future work will need to be attentive to these distinctions and could be well-poised to test emerging theories about adversity influencing the parsing and processing of uncertainty in decisionmaking [71,72].…”

“…This may be due to the current paradigm's inability to parse information about feedback valence (i.e., positive/negative) from uncertainty and risk (e.g., likelihood of winning versus not) [71]. Future work will need to be attentive to these distinctions and could be well-poised to test emerging theories about adversity influencing the parsing and processing of uncertainty in decisionmaking [71,72].…”