The Development of Self and Identity in Adolescence: Neural Evidence and Implications for a Value‐Based Choice Perspective on Motivated Behavior

Abstract

Following a key developmental task of childhood—building a foundation of self-knowledge in the form of domain-specific self-concepts—adolescents begin to explore their emerging identities in ways that foster autonomy and connectedness. Neuroimaging studies of self-related processes demonstrate enhanced engagement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in adolescence, which may facilitate and reflect the development of identity by integrating the value of potential actions and choices. Drawing from neuroeconomic and social cognitive accounts, we propose that motivated behavior during adolescence can be modeled by a general value-based decision-making process centered around value accumulation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This approach advances models of adolescent neurodevelopment that focus on reward sensitivity and cognitive control by considering more diverse value inputs, including contributions of developing self- and identity-related processes. It also considers adolescent decision making and behavior from adolescents’ point of view rather than adults’ perspectives on what adolescents should value or how they should behave.

What Characterizes Adolescents Struggling With Educational Decision‐Making?

“…As anticipated, across all participants we found increased activity in cortical midline areas (such as mPFC) during self‐evaluations across domains compared to a control task. This is consistent with studies investigating neural correlates of self‐processing in adults as well as in adolescents (Flagan & Beer, ; Northoff & Bermpohl, ; Pfeifer & Berkman, ; Romund et al, ).…”

Is adolescence the missing developmental link in Microbiome–Gut–Brain axis communication?

“…Compared to adults, adolescents show more activity in regions implicated in reward processing when they are making risky choices (e.g., picking an ambiguous option; see review Sherman, Steinberg, & Chein, 2017;Silverman, Jedd, & Luciana, 2015), and learning a task (e.g., learning pattern to improve; see review Romer, Reyna, & Satterthwaite, 2017). In addition, regions associated with social processing (i.e., the "social brain network") undergo significant functional and structural changes during adolescence (see review Blakemore & Mills, 2014) as well significant changes in functional activation and connectivity between midline structures involved in self-processing (see review Pfeifer & Berkman, 2018). A future avenue of interdisciplinary work should seek to identify gut-brain correlates of social and explorative behaviors during adolescence.…”

Emotion Modulation of the Body-Selective Areas in the Developing Brain

“…A question that cannot, by design, be addressed with our data is whether pubertal status could modulate brain response to body stimuli and its modulation by emotion. Indeed, during adolescence chronological age and sexual maturation interact in complex manners on their effect on brain structure and functions (Sisk and Foster 2004, Scherf, Behrmann et al 2012, Pfeifer and Berkman 2018. In particular, a few studies addressing the development of emotional face processing suggest an effect of puberty even after accounting for age (Forbes, Phillips et al 2011, Moore, Pfeifer et al 2012, especially expressed as a reduction in amygdala response to emotion as puberty progresses during mid-adolescence (review in Pfeifer 2018).…”