Neural systems supporting cognitive-affective interactions in adolescence: the role of puberty and implications for affective disorders

Abstract

Evidence from longitudinal studies suggests that adolescence may represent a period of vulnerability that, in the context of adverse events, could contribute to developmental trajectories toward behavioral and emotional health problems, including affective disorders. Adolescence is also a sensitive period for the development of neural systems supporting cognitive-affective processes, which have been implicated in the pathophysiology of affective disorders such as anxiety and mood disorders. In particular, the onset of puberty brings about a cascade of physical, hormonal, psychological, and social changes that contribute in complex ways to the development of these systems. This article provides a brief overview of neuroimaging research pertaining to the development of cognitive-affective processes in adolescence. It also includes a brief review of evidence from animal and human neuroimaging studies suggesting that sex steroids influence the connectivity between prefrontal cortical and subcortical limbic regions in ways that contribute to increased reactivity to emotionally salient stimuli. We integrate these findings in the context of a developmental affective neuroscience framework suggesting that the impact of rising levels of sex steroids during puberty on fronto-limbic connectivity may be even greater in the context of protracted development of prefrontal cortical regions in adolescence. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for future research aimed at identifying neurodevelopmental markers of risk for future onset of affective disorders.

Keywords: adolescence; affective disorders; cognition; cognitive control; development; emotion; puberty.

Figure 1

Example of the effects of testosterone on the functional connectivity between prefrontal cortical regions (i.e., VLPFC/FP) and subcortical regions (i.e., amygdala) during a task that recruits cognitive-affective processes. (A) Coupling between left VLPFC/FP and right amygdala, which was significantly (FWE, p < 0.05) modulated by testosterone during the affect-incongruent compared to the affect congruent condition of the Approach-Avoid task. (B) Scatter plot visualizing the positive correlation between testosterone and the VLPFC/FP-amygdala connectivity for the affect-incongruent versus the affect congruent trials. (Reprinted with permission from Cerebral Cortex, Oxford Publishers).

Figure 2

Simplified illustration of heuristic model describing the potential influence of the increase in sex hormones during pubertal maturation on the functioning of fronto-limbic circuitry implicated in the modulation of attention to emotionally salient distracters. For simplicity, involvement of other neural regions and their interactions with these and other regions were omitted. (+): positive modulation, (−) negative modulation, thickness of arrows reflects relative weight of impact. VLPFC: ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; DLPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.