The maturation of incentive processing and cognitive control

Abstract

Understanding how immaturities in the reward system affect decision-making can inform us on adolescent vulnerabilities to risk-taking, which is a primary contributor to mortality and substance abuse in this age group. In this paper, we review the literature characterizing the neurodevelopment of reward and cognitive control and propose a model for adolescent reward processing. While the functional neuroanatomy of the mature reward system has been well-delineated, adolescent reward processing is just beginning to be understood. Results indicate that adolescents relative to adults demonstrate decreased anticipatory processing and assessment of risk, but an increased consummatory response. Such differences could result in suboptimal representations of reward valence and value and bias adolescent decision-making. These functional differences in reward processing occur in parallel with on-going structural and pharmacological maturation in the adolescent brain. In addition to limitations in incentive processing, basic cognitive control abilities, including working memory and inhibitory control, continue to mature during adolescence. Consequently, adolescents may be limited, relative to adults, in their abilities to inhibit impulsive behaviors and reliably hold 'on-line' comparisons of potential rewards/punishments during decisionmaking.

An electrophysiological study of response conflict processing across the lifespan: Assessing the roles of conflict monitoring, cue utilization, response anticipation, and response suppression

“…Prime-based errors were more frequent in children and adolescents than in younger and older adults, confirming the claim that the ability to suppress prepared responses matures relatively late (cf. Diamond, 2006;Geier & Luna, 2009). In addition, misses and response-based errors also occurred more frequently in children and adolescents than in younger and older adults.…”

“…In light of developmental theories and empirical findings suggesting that children and adolescents are less able to inhibit unwanted action tendencies and thus are more prone to errors during response conflicts (e.g., Davies et al, 2004;Houdé, 1995;Jonkman, 2006;Pascual-Leone, 1983; see Craik & Bialystok, 2006;Diamond, 2006;Geier & Luna, 2009 for reviews), we expected smaller amplitudes of the ERPs reflecting motor control in children and adolescents (Nogo-P3 and Cue-CNV; cf: Jonkman et al, 2003;Jonkman, 2006) relative to young adults. Regarding age differences in adulthood, behavioral as well as imaging studies show that older adults have greater difficulties in using cue information to guide attentional control while processing response conflicts than younger adults (Braver, Barch, Keys et al, 2001;Braver et al, 2005;Burke & Osborne, 2007;Rush et al, 2006).…”

Future Directions in Emotion Dysregulation and Youth Psychopathology

“…Developmental shifts in tonic and phasic psychophysiological responding are conferred through various mechanisms, including increased body size and correlated alterations in cardiodynamics (e.g., Smulyan et al, 1998); age-related changes in physical fitness (e.g., Tulppo, Mäkikallio, Seppänen, Laukkanen, & Huikuri, 1998); maturation of the PFC, which is implicated in both emotion regulation and autonomic function (see earlier; e.g., Gogtay et al, 2004); migration of neural control over behavior to more fontal neural systems across development (Beauchaine & McNulty, 2013;Geier & Luna, 2009); age-associated changes in physiology (e.g., arterial hardening; Mitchell et al, 2004); and psychological maturation (e.g., more efficient control over attention; e.g., Karatekin, 2004). Given so many age-related influences, failure to model development is likely to introduce confounds and unwanted error variance into psychophysiological measures.…”

Risk-Taking, Delay Discounting, and Time Perspective in Adolescent Gamblers: An Experimental Study

“…The lack of studies examining the relationship between problem gambling and risk-taking in adolescence is even more surprising, given that adolescents tend to engage in more risky behavior than adults (Steinberg 2004(Steinberg , 2007(Steinberg , 2008. From a developmental perspective, there is a temporal imbalance between the slow maturation of circuitry underlying the ability to control impulses and the faster development of circuitry responsible for impulsive and reward-seeking behaviors (Blakemore and Robbins 2012;Dougherty et al 2015;Ernst et al 2006;Ernst and Fudge 2009;Geier and Luna 2009;see also Potenza 2013). This is most probably the reason why adolescence is a period of vulnerability for the engagement in risky behaviors (Figner et al 2009;Spear 2000;Steinberg 2010).…”