Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, UCB, Boulder, CO.
Ann Behav Med. 2018 Apr 19;52(5):356-366. doi: 10.1093/abm/kax028.
Identifying cognitive and neural mechanisms of decision making in adolescence can enhance understanding of, and interventions to reduce, risky health behaviors in adolescence. Delay discounting, or the propensity to discount the magnitude of temporally distal rewards, has been associated with diverse health risk behaviors, including risky sex. This cognitive process involves recruitment of reward and cognitive control brain regions, which develop on different trajectories in adolescence and are also implicated in real-world risky decision making. However, no extant research has examined how neural activation during delay discounting is associated with adolescents' risky sexual behavior.
To determine whether a relationship exists between adolescents' risky sexual behavior and neural activation during delay discounting.
Adolescent participants completed a delay discounting paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning, and they reported risky sexual behavior at baseline, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month follow-up time points. Latent growth curve models were employed to determine relationships between brain activation during delay discounting and change in risky sexual behavior over time.
Greater activation in brain regions associated with reward and cognitive control (caudate, putamen, nucleus accumbens, anterior cingulate, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) during delay discounting was associated with lower mean levels of risky sexual behavior but greater growth over the period from baseline to 6 months.
Neural activation during delay discounting is cross-sectionally and prospectively associated with risky sexual behavior in adolescence, highlighting a neural basis of risky decision-making as well as opportunities for early identification and intervention.
识别青少年决策的认知和神经机制可以增强对青少年危险健康行为的理解，并为减少这些行为提供干预措施。延迟折扣，即对时间上较远的奖励的价值进行折扣的倾向，与各种健康风险行为有关，包括危险的性行为。这一认知过程涉及奖励和认知控制大脑区域的招募，这些区域在青少年时期以不同的轨迹发展，也与现实世界中的风险决策有关。然而，目前还没有研究考察延迟折扣期间的神经激活与青少年的危险性行为之间的关系。
确定青少年的危险性行为与延迟折扣期间的神经激活之间是否存在关系。
青少年参与者在功能磁共振成像（fMRI）扫描期间完成了延迟折扣任务，并在基线、3、6、9 和 12 个月的随访时间点报告了危险的性行为。采用潜在增长曲线模型来确定延迟折扣期间大脑激活与危险性行为随时间变化之间的关系。
在延迟折扣期间，与奖励和认知控制相关的大脑区域（尾状核、壳核、伏隔核、前扣带回、脑岛、眶额皮层、下额额回、背外侧前额叶皮层）的激活程度越高，危险性行为的平均水平越低，但从基线到 6 个月的期间内，危险性行为的增长幅度越大。
延迟折扣期间的神经激活与青少年时期的危险性行为在横断面和前瞻性上相关，突出了危险决策的神经基础，以及早期识别和干预的机会。
