The longitudinal stability of fMRI activation during reward processing in adolescents and young adults

Abstract

Background: The use of functional neuroimaging has been an extremely fruitful avenue for investigating the neural basis of human reward function. This approach has included identification of potential neurobiological mechanisms of psychiatric disease and examination of environmental, experiential, and biological factors that may contribute to disease risk via effects on the reward system. However, a central and largely unexamined assumption of much of this research is that neural reward function is an individual difference characteristic that is relatively stable and trait-like over time. Methods: In two independent samples of adolescents and young adults studied longitudinally ( Ns = 145 & 139, 100% female and 100% male, ages 15–21 and 20–22, 2–4 scans and 2 scans respectively), we tested within-person stability of reward-task BOLD activation, with a median of 1 and 2 years between scans. We examined multiple commonly used contrasts of active states and baseline in both the anticipation and feedback phases of a card-guessing reward task. We examined the effects of cortical parcellation resolution, contrast, network (reward regions and resting-state networks), region-size, and activation strength and variability on the stability of reward-related activation. Results: In both samples, contrasts of an active state relative to a baseline were more stable (ICC: intra-class correlation; e.g., Win>Baseline; mean ICC = 0.13 – 0.33) than contrasts of two active states (e.g., Win>Loss; mean ICC = 0.048 – 0.05). Additionally, activation in reward regions was less stable than in many non-task networks (e.g., dorsal attention), and activation in regions with greater between-subject variability showed higher stability in both samples. Conclusions: These results show that some contrasts from functional neuroimaging activation during a card guessing reward task have partially trait-like properties in adolescent and young adult samples over 1–2 years. Notably, results suggest that contrasts intended to map cognitive function and show robust group-level effects (i.e. Win > Loss) may be less effective in studies of individual differences and disease risk. The robustness of group-level activation should be weighed against other factors when selecting regions of interest in individual difference fMRI studies.

Neural Responses to Social Reward Predict Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Girls During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…However, more large-scale, longitudinal research is needed to test whether blunted reward responsivity is truly trait-like, developing early in life and remaining stable over adolescence, or a symptom of depression present before self-reported symptoms ( Bress et al, 2013 ). Of note, research suggests that neural activity derived from reward fMRI tasks has acceptable stability over a 1- to 2-year period ( Baranger et al, 2021 ), supporting the short-term predictive ability of present fMRI data.…”

A brief child-friendly reward task reliably activates the ventral striatum in two samples of socioeconomically diverse youth

“…Consistent with studies on short-term reliability of the neural response to reward in adults [ 45 ], the signal of VS activation seems to be more reliable within twin pairs during the total win compared to neutral contrast (i.e., when not combining the effects of both win and loss in a single contrast). Therefore, our study is contributing to the growing literature that suggests some contrasts, particularly those with a single active condition [ 42 ], may be more reliable than others. At the same time, the within family/twin pair correlation of this task was quite low in effect size.…”

“…A growing concern in the field of developmental neuroscience is the reliability of task-evoked brain activation and its use as a tool to understand individual differences in behavior [ 42 – 44 ]. Notably, within-session reliability and longitudinal stability of brain activation to the MID task was poor in the ABCD Study, which challenges the notion that task-evoked brain activation is a stable and trait-like measure [ 44 ].…”

“…Notably, within-session reliability and longitudinal stability of brain activation to the MID task was poor in the ABCD Study, which challenges the notion that task-evoked brain activation is a stable and trait-like measure [ 44 ]. Without repeated measurements separated by days or weeks [ 42 ], we could not test the reliability of brain activation in response to our reward task over a short period of time. However, correlations in VS activation between complete twin pairs and trending associations for monozygotic twin pairs suggest there is at least some (small) reliable signal of VS activation in those data.…”

Peer Connectedness and Pre‐Existing Social Reward Processing Predicts U.S. Adolescent Girls’ Suicidal Ideation During COVID‐19

“…The following a priori reward‐related regions were selected: caudate, putamen, AI, NAcc, and vmPFC. Reward‐related neural activation has adequate stability over a 1‐ to 2‐year period (Baranger et al., 2021 ), supporting the use of neural activation to reward as a trait‐level predictor in short‐term longitudinal analysis. Finally, we explored the association between peer connectedness during the pandemic and pre‐existing neural activation to positive peer feedback, based on work showing a link between neural activation to social feedback and daily peer connectedness ( Silk et al., under review ).…”