Behavioral and Neural Dysregulation to Social Rewards and Links to Internalizing Symptoms in Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence is a time of unique sensitivity to socially salient stimuli such as social rewards. This period overlaps with the onset of psychopathology such as internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In the current studies, we examined behavioral and neural patterns of dysregulation to social rewards and threats, and links to internalizing and externalizing symptoms in youths. In study 1, we used a social Go/NoGo cognitive control task using peer faces to test for age-related behavioral differences in inhibitory failures in adolescents ( N = 53, M age = 13.37 years), and adults ( N = 51, M age = 43.71 years). In study 2, an independent adolescent sample ( N = 51, M age = 13.98 years) completed a similar social Go/NoGo cognitive control task during fMRI. Results show that adolescents had greater inhibitory failures – as measured by false alarm rate – to both social reward and threat cues than adults, and more so to social reward than threat cues. Greater inhibitory failures to social reward than threat cues were associated with greater internalizing symptoms, but were not significantly related to externalizing symptoms. At the neural level, greater inhibitory failures to social reward than threat cues as well as greater internalizing symptoms were both associated with heightened amygdala-ventral striatum connectivity. Our findings indicate that subcortico-subcortical connectivity, which is deemed to occur chronologically earlier and thus necessary for subcortico-cortical circuits, may serve as an early biomarker for emotion dysregulation and a risk factor for internalizing symptoms.

Neural sensitivity to social reward predicts social behavior and satisfaction in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic

“… Neural response to interactive social reward is linked to differential reports of social well-being  Social satisfaction in high reward sensitive youth is associated with more frequent interactive connections  Social satisfaction in low reward sensitive youth is associated with more frequent non-interactive social media use reward processing may have downstream effects on behavior and outcomes [8][9][10] . Theory suggests that the brain's variation in sensitivity to social reward (e.g., positive peer engagement) may provide a marker of susceptibility to influence when adolescents are around peers, and that this increased susceptibility confers differential outcomes depending on the type of environment 11,12 .…”

Mentalizing strategies for navigating the social world in adolescence

“…Finally, particularly relevant to the topic of individual differences in mentalizing strategies and mental health outcomes is research on reward processing in adolescence. Aberrant functioning of neural systems related to reward processing has been heavily implicated in internalizing difficulties such as depression among both adults (Ng et al, 2019) and adolescents (Forbes et al, 2009; Gotlib et al, 2010; Kwon et al, 2019). Given potential associations between mentalizing strategies and internalizing symptoms previously discussed in this review, exploring the relationship between neural and behavioural markers of mentalizing and reward processing could be a fruitful endeavour.…”

Need for approval and antisocial behavior moderate the effect of socioemotional cues on adolescent girls’ cognitive control

“…Previous work using laboratory tasks reveals age‐related reductions in the interfering nature of socioemotional stimuli on cognitive control throughout child and adolescent development, with peak performance not occurring until early adulthood (Cohen et al, 2016; Tottenham et al, 2011). Relative to adults, adolescents show lower levels of cognitive control in the face of socially salient cues, such as happy (Cohen et al, 2016; Kwon et al, 2019; Somerville et al, 2011) and sad (Cohen et al, 2016; Dreyfuss et al, 2014; Hare et al, 2008) facial expressions, as well as images of social acceptance (Perino et al, 2016). Despite this normative adolescent sensitivity to socioemotional information, there are likely individual differences in the strength of this sensitivity, such that some adolescents may be more or less sensitive to these cues.…”

“…Indeed, adolescents tend to engage in more risky and impulsive behaviors and exhibit poorer cognitive control in the presence relative to the absence of peers (Breiner et al, 2018; Steinberg, 2008). Moreover, compared to both children and adults, adolescents exhibit more cognitive control failures in the context of appetitive cues (Cohen et al, 2016; Kwon et al, 2019) relative to neutral (Somerville et al, 2011) and aversive (Perino et al, 2016; Rogers et al, 2020) cues. Taken together, research suggests that adolescent goal‐directed behavior may be compromised in the context of appetitive cues, which bias adolescents to approach incentives, even when those incentives may be risky.…”

“…Adolescents, but not adults, report lower mood following social exclusion (Sebastian et al, 2010), and several studies of cognitive control demonstrate age‐related differences in sensitivity to aversive emotional stimuli in adolescents compared to other age groups. For instance, compared to adults, adolescents exhibit worse cognitive control (more errors on a Go/No‐go task) in the context of aversive cues (fearful facial expressions, Cohen et al, 2016; angry facial expressions, Kwon et al, 2019) relative to neutral cues (calm facial expressions; Dreyfuss et al, 2014). Adolescents also are more distracted by fearful facial expressions than adults, resulting in longer reaction times (RTs) during cognitive control (Hare et al, 2008).…”