Kray Jutta, Schmitt Hannah, Lorenz Corinna, Ferdinand Nicola K
Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2018 May 23;9:768. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00768. eCollection 2018.
A number of recent hypothetical models on adolescent development take a dual-systems perspective and propose an imbalance in the maturation of neural systems underlying reward-driven and control-related behavior. In particular, such models suggest that the relative dominance of the early emerging subcortical reward system over the later emerging prefrontal-guided control system leads to higher risk-taking and sensation-seeking behavior in mid-adolescents. Here, we will review recent empirical evidence from behavioral and neuroscientific studies examining interactions between these systems and showing that empirical evidence in support for the view of a higher sensitivity to rewards in mid-adolescents is rather mixed. One possible explanation for this may be the use of different kinds and amounts of incentives across studies. We will therefore include developmental studies comparing the differential influence of primary and secondary incentives, as well as those investigating within the class of secondary incentives the effects of monetary, cognitive, or social incentives. We hypothesized that the value of receiving sweets or sours, winning or losing small or large amounts of money, and being accepted or rejected from a peer group may also changes across development, and thereby might modulate age differences in decision-making and cognitive control. Our review revealed that although developmental studies directly comparing different kinds of incentives are rather scarce, results of various studies rather consistently showed only minor age differences in the impact of incentives on the behavioral level. In tendency, adolescents were more sensitive to higher amounts of incentives and larger uncertainty of receiving them, as well as to social incentives such as the presence of peers observing them. Electrophysiological studies showed that processing efficiency was enhanced during anticipation of incentives and receiving them, irrespective of incentive type. Again, we found no strong evidence for interactions with age across studies. Finally, functional brain imaging studies revealed evidence for overlapping brain regions activated during processing of primary and secondary incentives, as well as social and non-social incentives. Adolescents recruited similar reward-related and control-related brain regions as adults did, but to a different degree. Implications for future research will be discussed.
近期一些关于青少年发育的假设模型采用了双系统视角，并提出在奖励驱动行为和控制相关行为背后的神经系统成熟过程中存在失衡。特别是，这类模型表明，早期出现的皮层下奖励系统相对于后期出现的前额叶引导的控制系统的相对主导地位，导致青少年中期出现更高的冒险和寻求刺激行为。在此，我们将回顾行为学和神经科学研究的最新实证证据，这些研究考察了这些系统之间的相互作用，并表明支持青少年中期对奖励更高敏感性观点的实证证据相当复杂。对此的一种可能解释可能是各研究中使用了不同种类和数量的激励措施。因此，我们将纳入比较初级和次级激励措施差异影响的发育研究，以及在次级激励措施类别中调查货币、认知或社会激励措施影响的研究。我们假设，收到甜食或酸味食物、输赢少量或大量金钱以及被同龄人群体接受或拒绝的价值在发育过程中也可能发生变化，从而可能调节决策和认知控制方面的年龄差异。我们的综述发现，尽管直接比较不同种类激励措施的发育研究相当稀少，但各项研究的结果相当一致地表明，激励措施对行为水平的影响只有微小的年龄差异。总体而言，青少年对更高数量的激励措施、获得这些激励措施的更大不确定性以及诸如同伴观察他们等社会激励措施更为敏感。电生理学研究表明，无论激励措施类型如何，在预期和接受激励措施期间处理效率都会提高。同样，我们在各项研究中没有发现与年龄相互作用的有力证据。最后，功能性脑成像研究揭示了在处理初级和次级激励措施以及社会和非社会激励措施时激活的重叠脑区的证据。青少年招募的与奖励相关和与控制相关的脑区与成年人相似，但程度不同。将讨论对未来研究的启示。
