Citation

Telzer EH, Ichien NT, Qu Y. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2015; 10(10): 1383-1391.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/scan/nsv026

PMID

25759470

Abstract

Despite being one of the healthiest developmental periods, morbidity and mortality rates increase dramatically during adolescence, largely due to preventable, risky behaviors. Heightened reward sensitivity, coupled with ineffective cognitive control, has been proposed to underlie adolescents' risk-taking. In the current study, we test whether reward sensitivity can be redirected to promote safe behavior. Adolescents completed a risk-taking task in the presence of their mother and alone during fMRI. Adolescents demonstrated reduced risk-taking behavior when their mothers were present compared to alone, which was associated with greater recruitment of the VLPFC when making safe decisions, decreased activation in the ventral striatum following risky decisions, and greater functional coupling between the ventral striatum and VLPFC when making safe decisions. Importantly, the very same neural circuitry (i.e., ventral striatum) that has been linked to greater risk-taking can also be redirected towards thoughtful, more deliberative, and safe decisions.

Language: en