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. 2023 Aug 19;18(1):nsad040.
doi: 10.1093/scan/nsad040.

Differential processing of risk and reward in delinquent and non-delinquent youth

Natasha Duell  1   2 , Michael T Perino  3 , Ethan M McCormick  4 , Eva H Telzer  1
Affiliations

Differential processing of risk and reward in delinquent and non-delinquent youth

Natasha Duell et al. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. .

Abstract

The present study examined the behavioral and neural differences in risky decision-making between delinquent (n = 23) and non-delinquent (n = 27) youth ages 13-17 years (M = 16, SD = 0.97) in relation to reward processing. While undergoing functional neuroimaging, participants completed an experimental risk task wherein they received feedback about the riskiness of their behavior in the form of facial expressions that morphed from happy to angry. Behavioral results indicated that delinquent youth took fewer risks and earned fewer rewards on the task than non-delinquent youth. Results from whole-brain analyses indicated no group differences in sensitivity to punishments (i.e. angry faces), but instead showed that delinquent youth evinced greater neural tracking of reward outcomes (i.e. cash-ins) in regions including the ventral striatum and inferior frontal gyrus. While behavioral results show that delinquent youth were more risk-averse, the neural results indicated that delinquent youth were also more reward-driven, potentially suggesting a preference for immediate rewards. Results offer important insights into differential decision-making processes between delinquent and non-delinquent youth.

Keywords: adolescents; delinquency; fMRI; risk-taking; ventral striatum.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared that they had no conflict of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
(A) Illustration of the ‘trick-or-treat’ task. Each decision was self-paced with a 500–4000 ms jitter between each event. If participants knocked the door until the resident’s face reached 50% anger, the door would slam (top half of figure). Participants could also choose to cash in any time (bottom half of figure). (B). Illustration of variability in slam points. In the top half of the figure, the resident’s expression changes quickly, resulting in a slam after only four knocks. In the bottom half of the figure, the resident’s expression changes slower, resulting in a slam after seven knocks.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Illustration of the cross-level interaction between the slam point and the group. The rate of anger represents the various slam points across trials (slow = 10 knocks; fast = 3 knocks). On slow trials, non-delinquent youth knocked more frequently than delinquent youth. There were no group differences in knocks on fast trials.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Differences in neural tracking of reward (cash-ins) between non-delinquent and delinquent youth in the VS.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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