In general, stimuli that are familiar and recognizable have an advantage of predominance during binocular rivalry. Recent research has demonstrated that familiar and recognizable stimuli such as upright faces and words in a native language could break interocular suppression faster than their matched controls. In this study, a visible word prime was presented binocularly then replaced by a high-contrast dynamic noise pattern presented to one eye and either a semantically related or unrelated word was introduced to the other eye. We measured how long it took for target words to break from suppression. To investigate word-parts priming, a second experiment also included word pairs that had overlapping subword fragments. Results from both experiments consistently show that semantically related words and words that shared subword fragments were faster to gain dominance compared to unrelated words, suggesting that words, even when interocularly suppressed and invisible, can benefit from semantic and subword priming.

Neurodevelopmental changes in mesolimbic regions are associated with adolescent risk-taking behavior. Numerous studies have shown exaggerated activation in the striatum in adolescents compared with children and adults during reward processing. However, striatal sensitivity to aversion remains elusive. Given the important role of the striatum in tracking both appetitive and aversive events, addressing this question is critical to understanding adolescent decision-making, as both positive and negative factors contribute to this behavior. In this study, human adult and adolescent participants performed a task in which they received squirts of appetitive or aversive liquid while undergoing fMRI, a novel approach in human adolescents. Compared with adults, adolescents showed greater behavioral and striatal sensitivity to both appetitive and aversive stimuli, an effect that was exaggerated in response to delivery of the aversive stimulus. Collectively, these findings contribute to understanding how neural responses to positive and negative outcomes differ between adolescents and adults and how they may influence adolescent behavior.

Smoking is usually initiated in adolescence, and is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Little is known, however, about the links between smoking and neurobiological function in adolescent smokers. This study aimed to probe prefrontal cortical function in late adolescent smokers, using a response inhibition task, and to assess possible relationships between inhibition-related brain activity, clinical features of smoking behavior, and exposure to cigarette smoking. Participants in this study were otherwise healthy late adolescent smokers (15-21 years of age; n ¼ 25), who reported daily smoking for at least the 6 months before testing, and age-and education-matched nonsmokers (16-21 years of age; n ¼ 25), who each reported smoking fewer than five cigarettes in their lifetimes. The subjects performed the Stop-signal Task, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. There were no significant group differences in prefrontal cortical activity during response inhibition, but the Heaviness of Smoking Index, a measure of smoking behavior and dependence, was negatively related to neural function in cortical regions of the smokers. These findings suggest that smoking can modulate prefrontal cortical function. Given the late development of the prefrontal cortex, which continues through adolescence, it is possible that smoking may influence the trajectory of brain development during this critical developmental period.

Adolescence is characterized as a developmental period of risky decision-making. During this developmental window there is also a marked increase in actual and perceived stress. Acute stress increases risky decision-making in adults, but no research has examined this phenomenon in adolescents. In this study, an ecologically relevant approach was used to document daily self-reports of stress in adolescents and an emerging adult comparison group. Participants visited the laboratory twice: once each when they endorsed a high and low level of stress, where they performed a risky decision-making task and a response inhibition task. In both groups, participants showed greater risky decision-making under high (vs. low) stress conditions but no stress-related effects on response inhibition. The dissociation between decision-making and response inhibition under stress suggests that, across development, individuals show greater vulnerability to contextual influence in decision-making domains.

In recent years the number of functional neuroimaging studies on adolescence has exploded. These studies have led to important new insights about the relation between functional brain development and behavior. However, special consideration is warranted when working with adolescents. In this review, we review variables, including pubertal stage, sleep patterns and pregnancy, which are particularly relevant for developmental cognitive neuroscience studies involving adolescents. Consideration of the unique challenges associated with adolescence will help the growing field of developmental neuroimaging standardize procedures and will eventually facilitate interpretation across studies.