Neural Correlates of Reward Processing in Adolescents With a History of Inhibited Temperament

Abstract

Functional imaging data were acquired during performance of a reward-contingency task in a unique cohort of adolescents (ages 14-18 years) who were characterized since infancy on measures of temperamental behavioral inhibition. Neural activation was examined in striatal structures (nucleus accumbens, putamen, caudate) with a known role in facilitating response to salient reward-related cues. Adolescents with a history of behavioral inhibition, relative to noninhibited adolescents, showed increased activation in the nucleus accumbens when they believed their selection of an action would affect reward outcome. Neural responses did not differ between the two groups when participants made a prespecified response that they knew would result in reward or when they produced random motor responses that they knew would not be rewarded. These results link inhibited temperament and perturbed neural responses to rewardcontingency cues.

Asymmetrical frontal cortical activity associated with differential risk for mood and anxiety disorder symptoms: An RDoC perspective

“…Third, recent research demonstrates that asking individuals to recall autobiographical memories characterized by high levels of anxious-apprehension elevates self-report and neurophysiological (i.e., midline theta activity) indices of approach motivation (Walden et al, 2015). Finally, two fMRI studies report that individuals high in behavioral inhibition display elevated ventral striatal activation during reward processing, reflecting elevated approach motivation (Bar-Haim et al, 2009;Guyer et al, 2006). These findings are balanced, however, by an fMRI study reporting that social phobia, a disorder aligned with anxious-arousal, was associated with elevated reward-related neural activation, whereas generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a disorder aligned with anxious-apprehension, did not show elevated reward-related neural activation (Guyer et al, 2012).…”

Behavioral Inhibition and Developmental Risk: A Dual-Processing Perspective

“…This includes motor response patterns, markers of activity in the autonomic nervous system (ie, heart rate and vagal tone; Kagan et al, 1987), cortical activity patterns (Calkins et al, 1996;McManis et al, 2002), and neuroendocrine profiles (ie, cortisol; Kagan et al, 1988;Schmidt et al, 1997). Recent advances in neuroscience have allowed this original amygdala-based model to be expanded to include broader perturbations in a distributed neural circuit, encompassing components of the PFC and striatum (Bar-Haim et al, 2009;Bishop et al, 2004;Guyer et al, 2006;Hardee et al, 2013;Helfinstein et al, 2012). Common across these diverse models is an emphasis on the relations between BI and hypersensitivity in neural circuitry rapidly engaged by automatic modes of processing and a resulting behavioral sensitivity to motivationally salient cues.…”

The triadic model perspective for the study of adolescent motivated behavior

“…Finally, the inclusion of the three types of task in a single paradigm opens the possibility of assessing the effect of agency on reward processes (Bar-Haim et al, 2009). After a review of the literature along the lines described above (Richards et al, 2013), we present a summary of the findings by type of task.…”