Increased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity in Adolescence Benefits Prosocial Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

Learning which of our behaviors benefit others contributes to forming social relationships. An important period for the development of (pro)social behavior is adolescence, which is characterized by transitions in social connections. It is, however, unknown how learning to benefit others develops across adolescence and what the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms are. In this functional neuroimaging study, we assessed learning for self and others (i.e., prosocial learning) and the concurring neural tracking of prediction errors across adolescence (ages 9–21, N = 74). Participants performed a two-choice probabilistic reinforcement learning task in which outcomes resulted in monetary consequences for themselves, an unknown other, or no one. Participants from all ages were able to learn for themselves and others, but learning for others showed a more protracted developmental trajectory. Prediction errors for self were observed in the ventral striatum and showed no age-related differences. However, prediction error coding for others showed an age-related increase in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These results reveal insights into the computational mechanisms of learning for others across adolescence, and highlight that learning for self and others show different age-related patterns.

A neurocognitive model of early onset persistent and desistant antisocial behavior in early adulthood

“…Prior studies using probabilistic learning tasks have shown repeatedly that the striatum is involved in tracking social reinforcement learning signals for self and others while individuals receive outcomes (Lockwood, 2016;Westhoff et al, 2021), particularly when receiving rewards (Dugré et al, 2018;Oldham et al, 2018), while losses are associated more closely with the dorsal striatum (Dugré et al, 2018;Murray et al, 2022). Another area that has been implicated in reinforcement learning while receiving outcomes for self and others is the PFC (Khamassi et al, 2013;Javadi et al, 2014;Lockwood and Wittmann, 2018;Westhoff et al, 2021), both while receiving rewards (Lockwood et al, 2018) and losses (Dugré et al, 2018). Previous studies further suggest that rostral and subgenual regions of the mPFC might be specialized in learning for others in social contexts (Lockwood et al, 2016;Christopoulos & King-Casas, 2015).…”

A methodological perspective on learning in the developing brain

“…As such, an individual’s social context can impact the rate of learning, as well as what is learned in a given situation depending on the developmental period. For instance, reinforcement learning models have been used to study how we update our expectations about others across development and how this is distinct from non-social learning (e.g., 58 – 63 ). Although the social context of learning warrants a review article of itself, we do want to highlight that the methods displayed in the current review are also valuable to apply to research that studies learning in a social context.…”

Reward processing and reinforcement learning: from adolescence to aging

“…Differences in the development of learning for oneself compared to another person were also found in adolescence (aged 9-21). Learning for other showed more protracted development than learning for self, in both analysis of learning rates and relative brain activity (Westhoff et al, 2021).…”