Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA.
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road UHN-80R1, Portland, OR, 97239, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2022 Feb;22(1):123-133. doi: 10.3758/s13415-021-00937-2. Epub 2021 Aug 3.
Adolescence is a period during which reward sensitivity is heightened. Studies suggest that there are individual differences in adolescent reward-seeking behavior, attributable to a variety of factors, including temperament. This study investigated the neurobiological underpinnings of risk and reward evaluation as they relate to self-reported pleasure derived from novel experiences on the revised Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ-R). Healthy participants (N = 265, ~50% male), aged 12-17 years, underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during a modified Wheel of Fortune task, where they evaluated choices with varying probability of winning different monetary rewards. Across all participants, there was increased brain response in salience, reward, and cognitive control circuitry when evaluating choices with larger (compared with moderate) difference in risk/reward. Whole brain and a priori region-of-interest regression analyses revealed that individuals reporting higher novelty seeking had greater activation in bilateral ventral striatum, left middle frontal gyrus, and bilateral posterior cingulate cortex when evaluating the choices for largest difference in risk/reward. These novelty seeking associations with brain response were seen in the absence of temperament-related differences in decision-making behavior. Thus, while heightened novelty seeking in adolescents might be associated with greater neural sensitivity to risk/reward, accompanying increased activation in cognitive control regions might regulate reward-driven risk-taking behavior. More research is needed to determine whether individual differences in brain activation associated with novelty seeking are related to decision making in more ecologically valid settings.
青春期是一个奖赏敏感性增强的时期。研究表明，青少年的奖赏寻求行为存在个体差异，这归因于多种因素，包括气质。本研究调查了与自我报告的从新体验中获得的愉悦感相关的风险和奖赏评估的神经生物学基础，这是基于修订后的早期青少年气质问卷（EATQ-R）。健康参与者（N=265，约 50%为男性），年龄在 12-17 岁，在改良的幸运轮任务中进行了功能磁共振成像，他们在该任务中评估了不同概率赢得不同货币奖励的选择。在所有参与者中，当评估具有较大（与中等相比）风险/奖励差异的选择时，大脑在突显、奖励和认知控制回路中表现出更强的反应。全脑和预先设定的感兴趣区回归分析显示，当评估风险/奖励差异最大的选择时，报告有更高新奇寻求的个体在双侧腹侧纹状体、左侧额中回和双侧后扣带回皮层中表现出更大的激活。这些与大脑反应相关的新奇寻求关联在决策行为方面没有表现出与气质相关的差异。因此，虽然青少年中较高的新奇寻求可能与对风险/奖励的神经敏感性增加有关，但伴随的认知控制区域的增加激活可能会调节奖赏驱动的冒险行为。需要进一步的研究来确定与新奇寻求相关的大脑激活的个体差异是否与更具生态有效性的决策有关。
