Department of Psychology and Social Sciences Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, 111 Moore Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2012 Apr;2(2):199-219. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2011.07.016. Epub 2011 Aug 17.
Adolescence is a time of dramatic physical, cognitive, emotional, and social changes as well as a time for the development of many social-emotional problems. These characteristics raise compelling questions about accompanying neural changes that are unique to this period of development. Here, we propose that studying adolescent-specific changes in face processing and its underlying neural circuitry provides an ideal model for addressing these questions. We also use this model to formulate new hypotheses. Specifically, pubertal hormones are likely to increase motivation to master new peer-oriented developmental tasks, which will in turn, instigate the emergence of new social/affective components of face processing. We also predict that pubertal hormones have a fundamental impact on the re-organization of neural circuitry supporting face processing and propose, in particular, that, the functional connectivity, or temporal synchrony, between regions of the face-processing network will change with the emergence of these new components of face processing in adolescence. Finally, we show how this approach will help reveal why adolescence may be a period of vulnerability in brain development and suggest how it could lead to prevention and intervention strategies that facilitate more adaptive functional interactions between regions within the broader social information processing network.
青春期是身体、认知、情感和社会发生巨大变化的时期，也是许多社会情感问题发展的时期。这些特征提出了一些引人关注的问题，即伴随这一发展阶段的独特神经变化。在这里，我们提出研究面部处理及其潜在神经回路的青少年特异性变化为解决这些问题提供了一个理想的模型。我们还使用该模型来提出新的假设。具体而言，青春期激素可能会增加掌握新的面向同伴的发展任务的动力，这反过来又会引发面部处理的新的社会/情感成分的出现。我们还预测，青春期激素对面部处理支持神经回路的重新组织具有根本影响，并特别提出，面部处理网络区域之间的功能连接或时间同步性将随着这些新的面部处理成分的出现而发生变化。最后，我们展示了这种方法如何帮助揭示为什么青春期可能是大脑发育脆弱的时期，并提出了如何通过促进更广泛的社会信息处理网络中区域之间的适应性功能相互作用来实现预防和干预策略。
