Adolescent brain in a social world: unravelling the positive power of peers from a neurobehavioral perspective

Pathways through Adolescenc

Neural underpinnings of peer experiences and interactions: a review of social neuroscience research

Pathways through Adolescenc

Longitudinal links between childhood peer acceptance and the neural correlates of sharing

Childhood peer acceptance is associated with high levels of prosocial behavior and advanced perspective taking skills. Yet, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these associations have not been studied. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of sharing decisions in a group of adolescents who had a stable accepted status (n = 27) and a group who had a chronic rejected status (n = 19) across six elementary school grades. Both groups of adolescents played three allocation games in which they could share money with strangers with varying costs and profits to them and the other person. Stably accepted adolescents were more likely to share their money with unknown others than chronically rejected adolescents when sharing was not costly. Neuroimaging analyses showed that stably accepted adolescents, compared to chronically rejected adolescents, exhibited higher levels of activation in the temporo-parietal junction, posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal pole, pre-supplementary motor area, and anterior insula during costly sharing decisions. These findings demonstrate that stable peer acceptance across childhood is associated with heightened activity in brain regions previously linked to perspective taking and the detection of social norm violations during adolescence, and thereby provide insight into processes underlying the widely established links between peer acceptance and prosocial behavior

Medial prefrontal cortical thinning mediates shifts in other-regarding preferences during adolescence

Pathways through Adolescenc

Neural mechanisms of criminal decision making in adolescence: The roles of executive functioning and empathy

Adolescence is a time of change in which there is an increase and peak in criminal behavior. This chapter discusses the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying criminal decision making in adolescents. First, it provides a brief overview of the neural basis of decision making in typically developing adolescents. Second, it discusses studies that examine decision-making processes in delinquent and antisocial adolescents compared to their typically developing peers. The chapter focuses on executive functioning and empathy, and it is concluded that delinquent and antisocial adolescents mainly display affective deficits. This is manifested in risky and impulsive decisions and in impaired sensitivity to the distress and perspectives of other people. Finally, the chapter argues that future research on criminal decision making in adolescence could benefit from focusing on subgroups of offenders and from including environmental factors such as peer influence in experimental designs.Pathways through Adolescenc

Friendship stability in adolescence is associated with ventral striatum responses to vicarious rewards

An important task for adolescents is to form and maintain friendships. In this three-wave biannual study, we used a longitudinal neuroscience perspective to examine the dynamics of friendship stability. Relative to childhood and adulthood, adolescence is marked by elevated ventral striatum activity when gaining self-serving rewards. Using a sample of participants between the ages of eight and twenty-eight, we tested age-related changes in ventral striatum response to gaining for stable (n = 48) versus unstable best friends (n = 75) (and self). In participants with stable friendships, we observed a quadratic developmental trajectory of ventral striatum responses to winning versus losing rewards for friends, whereas participants with unstable best friends showed no age-related changes. Ventral striatum activity in response to winning versus losing for friends further varied with friendship closeness for participants with unstable friendships. We suggest that these findings may reflect changing social motivations related to formation and maintenance of friendships across adolescence.Pathways through Adolescenc

Longitudinal links between childhood peer acceptance and the neural correlates of sharing

Pathways through Adolescenc

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Pathways through Adolescenc