TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural and Psychological Maturation of Decision-making in Adolescence and Young Adulthood
AU - Christakou, Anastasia
AU - Gershman, Samuel J
AU - Niv, Yael
AU - Simmons, Andrew
AU - Brammer, Mick
AU - Rubia, Katya
PY - 2013/7/16
Y1 - 2013/7/16
N2 - We examined the maturation of decision-making from early adolescence to midadulthood using fMRI of a variant of the Iowa gambling task. We have previously shown that performance in this task relies on sensitivity to accumulating negative outcomes in ventromedial pFC and dorsolateral pFC. Here, we further formalize outcome evaluation (as driven by prediction errors [PE], using a reinforcement learning model) and examine its development. Task performance improved significantly during adolescence, stabilizing in adulthood. Performance relied on greater impact of negative compared with positive PEs, the relative impact of which matured from adolescence into adulthood. Adolescents also showed increased exploratory behavior, expressed as a propensity to shift responding between options independently of outcome quality, whereas adults showed no systematic shifting patterns. The correlation between PE representation and improved performance strengthened with age for activation in ventral and dorsal pFC, ventral striatum, and temporal and parietal cortices. There was a medial-lateral distinction in the prefrontal substrates of effective PE utilization between adults and adolescents: Increased utilization of negative PEs, a hallmark of successful performance in the task, was associated with increased activation in ventromedial pFC in adults, but decreased activation in ventrolateral pFC and striatum in adolescents. These results suggest that adults and adolescents engage qualitatively distinct neural and psychological processes during decision-making, the development of which is not exclusively dependent on reward-processing maturation.
AB - We examined the maturation of decision-making from early adolescence to midadulthood using fMRI of a variant of the Iowa gambling task. We have previously shown that performance in this task relies on sensitivity to accumulating negative outcomes in ventromedial pFC and dorsolateral pFC. Here, we further formalize outcome evaluation (as driven by prediction errors [PE], using a reinforcement learning model) and examine its development. Task performance improved significantly during adolescence, stabilizing in adulthood. Performance relied on greater impact of negative compared with positive PEs, the relative impact of which matured from adolescence into adulthood. Adolescents also showed increased exploratory behavior, expressed as a propensity to shift responding between options independently of outcome quality, whereas adults showed no systematic shifting patterns. The correlation between PE representation and improved performance strengthened with age for activation in ventral and dorsal pFC, ventral striatum, and temporal and parietal cortices. There was a medial-lateral distinction in the prefrontal substrates of effective PE utilization between adults and adolescents: Increased utilization of negative PEs, a hallmark of successful performance in the task, was associated with increased activation in ventromedial pFC in adults, but decreased activation in ventrolateral pFC and striatum in adolescents. These results suggest that adults and adolescents engage qualitatively distinct neural and psychological processes during decision-making, the development of which is not exclusively dependent on reward-processing maturation.
KW - Acknowledged-BRC
KW - Acknowledged-BRC-13/14
U2 - 10.1162/jocn_a_00447
DO - 10.1162/jocn_a_00447
M3 - Article
C2 - 23859647
SN - 0898-929X
JO - JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
JF - JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
ER -