Center for Depression, Anxiety and Stress Research, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, 02478, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2019 Nov 1;14(11):1159-1166. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsz086.
Adolescents strive for peer approval, and an increased sensitivity to peers' opinions is normative. However, among vulnerable adolescents, peer evaluation can be detrimental, contributing to affective disorders. It is, therefore, critical to improve our understanding of neural underpinnings of peer evaluation. Prior research has investigated averaged neural responses to peer acceptance or rejection, neglecting to probe trial-by-trial computations that mirror real-time updating of daily activities. In non-social decision-making, a common neural valuation system centered on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has emerged, which evaluates different reward types on a common scale to guide choices. However, it is unclear whether the mPFC also tracks complex social scenarios involving peer feedback. To address this gap, we acquired fMRI data from 55 healthy adolescents during the Chatroom Task, which probes peer evaluation, and implemented a computational approach to characterize trial-by-trial social value, thereby allowing us to interrogate the neural correlates of social value. Consistent with our hypothesis, social value signals were encoded in the mPFC. Interestingly, analyses also revealed a wider social-specific valuation network including the precuneus and amygdala. Understanding how adolescents make social decisions and neural markers associated with it, may, ultimately, help us clarify promising targets for intervention.
青少年渴望得到同龄人的认可，对同龄人的意见更加敏感是很正常的。然而，在脆弱的青少年中，同伴的评价可能是有害的，会导致情绪障碍。因此，深入了解同伴评价的神经基础至关重要。先前的研究调查了对同伴接受或拒绝的平均神经反应，而忽略了探测实时更新日常活动的逐次计算。在非社会决策中，一个以中前额叶皮层（mPFC）为中心的常见神经估值系统已经出现，它根据一个共同的尺度评估不同类型的奖励，以指导选择。然而，目前尚不清楚 mPFC 是否也跟踪涉及同伴反馈的复杂社会场景。为了弥补这一空白，我们在“聊天室任务”中从 55 名健康青少年那里获取了 fMRI 数据，该任务探测了同伴评价，并实施了一种计算方法来描述逐次的社会价值，从而使我们能够探究社会价值的神经相关性。与我们的假设一致，mPFC 中编码了社会价值信号。有趣的是，分析还揭示了一个更广泛的社会特定估值网络，包括顶内沟和杏仁核。了解青少年如何做出社会决策以及与之相关的神经标志物，最终可能有助于我们澄清有希望的干预目标。
