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. 2020 Apr 21:14:141.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00141. eCollection 2020.

Neural Dynamic Responses of Monetary and Social Reward Processes in Adolescents

Di Wang  1   2 , Tongran Liu  1   2 , Jiannong Shi  1   2
Affiliations

Neural Dynamic Responses of Monetary and Social Reward Processes in Adolescents

Di Wang et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Adolescence is an essential developmental period characterized by reward-related processes. The current study investigated the development of monetary and social reward processes in adolescents compared with that in children and adults; furthermore, it assessed whether adolescents had different levels of sensitivity to various types of rewards. Two adapted incentive delay tasks were employed for each participant, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that both monetary and social rewards could motivate response speed, and participants were more accurate under the monetary reward condition than under the social reward condition. The behavioral performances of individuals increased with age. For the ERP data, the cue-P3, target-P2, target-P3 and feedback-related negativity (FRN) components were investigated to identify reward motivation, emotional arousal, attention allocation and feedback processing. Children and adolescents showed higher motivation (larger cue-P3) to rewards than adults. Adolescents showed larger emotional responses to rewards; that is, they had larger target-P2 amplitudes than adults and shorter target-P2 latencies than children. Children showed stronger emotional reactivity for monetary rewards than for social rewards. All age groups had stronger attentional control (larger target-P3) under the monetary reward condition than under the social reward condition. The present study sheds light on the neurodevelopment of reward processes in children, adolescents and adults and shows that various reward process stages demonstrate different age-related and reward-type-related characteristics.

Keywords: adolescence; event-related potential; monetary reward; neurodevelopment; reward processes; social reward.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Examples of the trial sequence in monetary and social tasks.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Grand average waveforms of cue-P3 components over central-parietal areas (CPz) in response to the presentation of the cue stimuli for each age group.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Grand average waveforms of target-P2 and target-P3 components over central areas (Cz) in response to the presentation of the target stimuli for each age group.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Grand average waveforms of FRN components over fronto-central areas (FCz) in response to the presentation of the feedback stimuli for each age group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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