Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders

Abstract

The dual-systems model of a ventral affective system, whose reactivity confers risks and liabilities, and a prefrontal control system, whose regulatory capacities buffer against these vulnerabilities, is an intuitive account that pervades many fields in the cognitive neurosciences – especially in the study of populations that differ from neurotypical adults, such as adolescents or individuals with affective or impulse regulation disorders. However, recent evidence that is inconsistent with dual-systems models illustrates the complexity of developmental and clinical variations in brain function. Building new models to account for this complexity is critical to progress in these fields, and will be facilitated by research that emphasizes network-based approaches and maps relationships between structure and function, as well as brain and behavior, over time.

The neurocognitive correlates of academic diligence in adolescent girls

“…It echoes previous theoretical work highlighting the limited ability of the dualsystems framework to explain the wide range of adolescent self-control observed in naturalistic settings (Crone & Dahl, 2012;Pfeifer & Allen, 2012). In conjunction with previous research, it also highlights that it may be useful to move away from the duality of fronto-striatal systems and instead explore more extended brain networks (Baum et al, 2017;.…”

“…While many studies find similarly increased average impulsivity and reduced self-control in adolescence, compared with other ages (Braams, Van Duijvenvoorde, Peper, & Crone, 2015;Casey et al, 2008;Steinberg, 2008), the dual-systems hypothesis in its original form has been critiqued as overly simplistic (Casey, Galván, & Somerville, 2016;Crone & Dahl, 2012;Pfeifer & Allen, 2012): Imaging studies have highlighted heterogeneity in the development of frontal and striatal structures (Pfeifer & Allen, 2012), task-related functional activation (Crone & Dahl, 2012) and individual trajectories of structural maturation (Foulkes & Blakemore, 2018;Mills, Goddings, Clasen, Giedd, & Blakemore, 2014). Such individual differences are relevant to education and may predict inter-individual variance in academic diligence (Duckworth & Steinberg, 2015).…”

Development of Risk-Taking, Perspective-Taking, and Inhibitory Control During Adolescence

“…However dual-system models Steinberg, 2010) are likely to be too simplistic. Researchers have argued there may be too much emphasis on frontal cortical immaturity and hyperactivation in the striatum as being behind adolescent risk-taking, to the detriment of a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between cognitive, affective and social processing during development (Crone & Dahl, 2012;Pfeifer & Allen, 2012;Willoughby, Tavernier, Hamza, Adachi, & Good, 2014). More recent consideration of real-life risk-taking data suggests that the highest level of risk-taking behaviours occurs in fact among emerging adults, and that the type of risk is likely to play an important role in differences in risk-taking across the lifespan (Willoughby et al, 2013).…”

The Orbitofrontal Cortex, Drug Use and Impulsivity: Can Teenage Rebellion Be Predicted Through Neural Correlates?

“…A common 'two systems' model of reward processing posits an interplay between the subcortical reward system and control exerted by the prefrontal cortex. According to this model, teenage impulsivity results from the asynchronous development of these systems [5]. For example, when presented with a choice task involving varying reward values, adolescents' reward-processing (nucleus accumbens) activity was similar to that found in adults, while activity in the OFC was more similar to activity found in children [6].…”