Share this post on:

Ng with the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and striatum, can also be more active during the experience of social conformity (Izuma, 2013) or social exclusion (Pfeifer and Peake, 2012). However, given the potentially important relationship between social influences and rewards, we focused on a region that subserves a more general function relevant to social behavior (i.e. reward processing) and is engaged during risk taking: the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (Haber and Knutson, 2010; Bhanji and Delgado, 2014). Based on prior research, we Quizartinib web predicted that adolescents would show increased risk taking in the context of receiving social rank feedback compared to monetary feedback about their task performance (e.g. Chein et al., 2011). Furthermore, we predicted that adolescents with higher testosterone and/or estradiol levels would be more biased toward risky decisions in the social rank compared to monetary feedback context (e.g. Van den Bos et al., 2013). Finally, we predicted that reward-related brain activation (in NAc and mPFC) associated with risky decisions would be enhanced in the social rank compared to monetary feedback context (Chein et al., 2011; Engelmann and Hein, 2013; Bhanji and Delgado, 2014), and that this effect would be moderated by the level of Chaetocin web pubertal hormones (according to a model proposed by Crone and Dahl, 2012).Methods and materialsParticipantsThe results presented here are based on 58 participants: 23 11year-olds, 19 12-year-olds, and 16 13-year-olds (M age ?12.4, SD ?0.92). Participants were recruited within a narrow age range around the onset of puberty to capture the developmental|Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2017, Vol. 12, No.window during which individual differences in pubertal stage are the largest while keeping age relatively constant. Among the included participants 46.6 were Caucasian, 10.3 Asian, 5.2 Hispanic/Latin, 3.4 African-American, 24.1 were multiracial and 10.4 did not provide information about their race or ethnicity. All participants scored within the normal range on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991), based on their total score. Furthermore, there were no age-related differences in cognitive functioning, as measured by their performance on the matrix-reasoning subtest of the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (Wechsler, 1999). See Supplementary Table S1 for the means, SD and ranges for each age group. Before entering the study, written informed consent was obtained from the parent or legal guardian of the participant, and assent was obtained from the participant. All participants received 130 in gift cards at the end of the study, which included compensation for their travel time, the time spent in the lab, and additional task winnings. See Supplementary Materials for a detailed description of the recruitment and study procedures. The University of California Berkeley Institutional Review Board approved all procedures.Pubertal measuresIn this study, we collected multiple measures of pubertal stage. Self-reported pubertal stage was assessed using the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS; Petersen et al., 1988). Testosterone and estradiol levels were measured based on two saliva samples from each participant, collected at home across two mornings. Furthermore, we calculated body mass index (BMI) to index physical size. See Supplementary Materials for a detailed description of these developmental measures as well as the sample mean.Ng with the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and striatum, can also be more active during the experience of social conformity (Izuma, 2013) or social exclusion (Pfeifer and Peake, 2012). However, given the potentially important relationship between social influences and rewards, we focused on a region that subserves a more general function relevant to social behavior (i.e. reward processing) and is engaged during risk taking: the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (Haber and Knutson, 2010; Bhanji and Delgado, 2014). Based on prior research, we predicted that adolescents would show increased risk taking in the context of receiving social rank feedback compared to monetary feedback about their task performance (e.g. Chein et al., 2011). Furthermore, we predicted that adolescents with higher testosterone and/or estradiol levels would be more biased toward risky decisions in the social rank compared to monetary feedback context (e.g. Van den Bos et al., 2013). Finally, we predicted that reward-related brain activation (in NAc and mPFC) associated with risky decisions would be enhanced in the social rank compared to monetary feedback context (Chein et al., 2011; Engelmann and Hein, 2013; Bhanji and Delgado, 2014), and that this effect would be moderated by the level of pubertal hormones (according to a model proposed by Crone and Dahl, 2012).Methods and materialsParticipantsThe results presented here are based on 58 participants: 23 11year-olds, 19 12-year-olds, and 16 13-year-olds (M age ?12.4, SD ?0.92). Participants were recruited within a narrow age range around the onset of puberty to capture the developmental|Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2017, Vol. 12, No.window during which individual differences in pubertal stage are the largest while keeping age relatively constant. Among the included participants 46.6 were Caucasian, 10.3 Asian, 5.2 Hispanic/Latin, 3.4 African-American, 24.1 were multiracial and 10.4 did not provide information about their race or ethnicity. All participants scored within the normal range on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991), based on their total score. Furthermore, there were no age-related differences in cognitive functioning, as measured by their performance on the matrix-reasoning subtest of the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (Wechsler, 1999). See Supplementary Table S1 for the means, SD and ranges for each age group. Before entering the study, written informed consent was obtained from the parent or legal guardian of the participant, and assent was obtained from the participant. All participants received 130 in gift cards at the end of the study, which included compensation for their travel time, the time spent in the lab, and additional task winnings. See Supplementary Materials for a detailed description of the recruitment and study procedures. The University of California Berkeley Institutional Review Board approved all procedures.Pubertal measuresIn this study, we collected multiple measures of pubertal stage. Self-reported pubertal stage was assessed using the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS; Petersen et al., 1988). Testosterone and estradiol levels were measured based on two saliva samples from each participant, collected at home across two mornings. Furthermore, we calculated body mass index (BMI) to index physical size. See Supplementary Materials for a detailed description of these developmental measures as well as the sample mean.

Share this post on: