Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia.
Priority Research Centre for Stroke and Brain Injury, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2019 Jun;19(3):653-676. doi: 10.3758/s13415-019-00722-2.
Neurobiological models explain increased risk-taking behaviours in adolescence and young adulthood as arising from staggered development of subcortical reward networks and prefrontal control networks. In this study, we examined whether individual variability in impulsivity and reward-related mechanisms is associated with higher level of engagement in risky behaviours and vulnerability to maladaptive outcomes and whether this relationship is mediated by cognitive control ability. A community sample of adolescents, young adults, and adults (age = 15-35 years) completed self-report measures and behavioural tasks of cognitive control, impulsivity, and reward-related mechanisms, and self-reported level of maladaptive outcomes. Behavioural, event-related potential (ERP), and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) measures of proactive control were derived from a task-switching paradigm. Adolescents, but not young adults, reported higher levels of impulsivity, reward-seeking behaviours and maladaptive outcomes than adults. They also had lower cognitive control ability, as measured by both self-report and task-based measures. Consistent with models of risk-taking behaviour, self-reported level of cognitive control mediated the relationship between self-reported levels of impulsivity and psychological distress, but the effect was not moderated by age. In contrast, there was no mediation effect of behavioural or EEG-based measures of cognitive control. These findings suggest that individual variability in cognitive control is more crucial to the relationship between risk-taking/impulsivity and outcomes than age itself. They also highlight large differences in measurement between self-report and task-based measures of cognitive control and decision-making under reward conditions, which should be considered in any studies of cognitive control.
神经生物学模型解释了青少年和年轻成年人冒险行为增加的原因，这是由于皮质下奖励网络和前额叶控制网络的发展不同步所致。在这项研究中，我们研究了冲动性和与奖励相关的机制的个体差异是否与更高水平的冒险行为以及对适应不良结果的易感性有关，以及这种关系是否通过认知控制能力来介导。一个由青少年、年轻成年人和成年人（年龄为 15-35 岁）组成的社区样本完成了认知控制、冲动性和与奖励相关的机制的自我报告测量和行为任务，以及自我报告的适应不良结果水平。来自任务切换范式的行为、事件相关电位 (ERP) 和多元模式分析 (MVPA) 措施用于推前控制。青少年比成年人报告了更高水平的冲动性、寻求奖励的行为和适应不良的结果，而年轻人则没有。他们的认知控制能力也较低，无论是通过自我报告还是基于任务的测量。与冒险行为模型一致，自我报告的认知控制水平介导了自我报告的冲动性水平与心理困扰之间的关系，但这种关系不受年龄的影响。相比之下，行为或基于 EEG 的认知控制测量没有中介效应。这些发现表明，认知控制的个体差异对冒险/冲动和结果之间的关系比年龄本身更为重要。它们还强调了自我报告和基于任务的认知控制和奖励条件下决策测量之间的测量差异很大，在任何认知控制研究中都应考虑这些差异。
