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. 2013 Apr 1;22(2):82-87.
doi: 10.1177/0963721413480170.

The Teenage Brain: Self Control

Bj Casey  1 , Kristina Caudle  1
Affiliations

The Teenage Brain: Self Control

Bj Casey et al. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. .

Abstract

Adolescence refers to the transition from childhood to adulthood that begins with the onset of puberty and ends with successful independence from the parent. A paradox for human adolescence is why, during a time when the individual is probably faster, stronger, of higher reasoning capacity and more resistant to disease, there is such an increase in mortality relative to childhood. These untimely deaths are not due to disease, but rather to preventable forms of death (accidental fatalities, suicide and homicide) associated with adolescents putting themselves in harm's way due, in part, to diminished self control - the ability to suppress inappropriate emotions, desires and actions. This paper highlights how self control varies as a function of age, context and the individual and delineates its neurobiological basis.

Keywords: Adolescence; development; prefrontal cortex; reward; salience; self control; ventral striatum.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Performance of a standard Go/Nogo Task by Age
D-prime, a measure of accuracy that includes both hits and false alarms, is plotted as a function of age illustrating improvements in performance with age, but high variability with some adolescents performing as well or better than some adults as indicated in gray box (Data from Hare et al. 2008, National Research Council, 2011).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Developmental and Individual Differences in Behavior and the Brain
Teens unlke children and adults, make more false alarms to positive social cues than neutral ones on a go/nogo task (A and B). This behavioral performance is paralleled by enhanced activity of the ventral striatum (D and E), part of the reward circuit) to appetitive cues in teens relative to children and adults (bottom left). Low delayers make more false alarms to positive social cues than high delayers on a go/nogo task (C). This behavioral performance is paralleled by enhanced activity of the ventral striatum in low dealyers realtive to high delayers (F). Adapted from Somerville, Hare & Casey, 2011; Casey et al. 2012.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Ventral Prefrontal Activity correlates with Go/Nogo Task Performance
The left panel illustrates localization of the ventral prefrontal cortical region that correlates with behavioral performance. The right panel (Adapted from Somerville, Hare & Casey, 2011) illustrates the correlation between BOLD signal in the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex and go/nogo task performance by age group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bell CC, McBride DF. Affect regulation and prevention of risky behaviors. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. 2010;304(5):565–566. - PubMed
    1. Casey BJ, Somerville LH, Gotlib IH, Ayduk O, Franklin NT, Askren MK, Shoda Y. Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2011;108(36):14998–15003. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chein J, Albert D, O’Brien L, Uckert K, Steinberg L. Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain’s reward circuitry. Developmental science. 2011;14(2):F1–10. - PMC - PubMed
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SUGGESTED READINGS

    1. Casey BJ, Somerville LH, Gotlib IH, Ayduk O, Franklin NT, Askren MK, Shoda Y. Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2011;108(36):14998–15003. This study provides empirical evidence of stable individual differences over 40 years in self control that are associated with differences in ventral frontostriatal circuitry.

    1. Casey BJ, Duhoux S, Cohen MM. Adolescence: What Do Transmission, Transition, and Translation Have to Do with It? Neuron. 2010;67(5):749–760. A review highlighting that adolescence is not special to humans but rather observed across species and is an evolutionarily adaptive and necessary phase of typical development.

    1. Somerville LH, Hare T, Casey BJ. Frontostriatal maturation predicts cognitive control failure to appetitive cues in adolescents. Journal of cognitive neuroscience. 2011;23(9):2123–2134. This study provides empirical evidence showing that adolescence can show remarkable restraint in controling habitual responses, but tend to fail when controling habitual repsonse to salient positive cues in the environment. This behavioral pattern is paralleled by exagerated responses in reward related circuitry relative to children and adults.

    1. Van Leijenhorst L, Zanolie K, Van Meel CS, Westenberg PM, Rombouts SA, Crone EA. What motivates the adolescent? Brain regions mediating reward sensitivity across adolescence. Cerebral cortex. 2010;20(1):61–69. Using a passive viewing gambling task, this article reports striatal and prefrontal regions that are more sensitive to the anticipation and receipt of rewards in adolescence.

    1. Geier CF, Terwilliger R, Teslovich T, Velanova K, Luna B. Immaturities in reward processing and its influence on inhibitory control in adolescence. Cerebral cortex. 2010;20(7):1613–1629. Using an antisaccade task, this article demonstrates how reward motivation dynamically influences recruitment of striatal and prefrontal regions in adolescents.

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