Immaturities in Reward Processing and Its Influence on Inhibitory Control in Adolescence

The nature of immature reward processing and the influence of rewards on basic elements of cognitive control during adolescence are currently not well understood. Here, during functional magnetic resonance imaging, healthy adolescents and adults performed a modified antisaccade task in which trial-by-trial reward contingencies were manipulated. The use of a novel fast, event-related design enabled developmental differences in brain function underlying temporally distinct stages of reward processing and response inhibition to be assessed. Reward trials compared with neutral trials resulted in faster correct inhibitory responses across ages and in fewer inhibitory errors in adolescents. During reward trials, the blood oxygen level–dependent signal was attenuated in the ventral striatum in adolescents during cue assessment, then overactive during response preparation, suggesting limitations during adolescence in reward assessment and heightened reactivity in anticipation of reward compared with adults. Importantly, heightened activity in the frontal cortex along the precentral sulcus was also observed in adolescents during reward-trial response preparation, suggesting reward modulation of oculomotor control regions supporting correct inhibitory responding. Collectively, this work characterizes specific immaturities in adolescent brain systems that support reward processing and describes the influence of reward on inhibitory control. In sum, our findings suggest mechanisms that may underlie adolescents’ vulnerability to poor decision-making and risk-taking behavior

X-ray laser implementation by means of a strong source of high-spin metastable atoms

High-spin metastable atomic beams of high density and extremely small divergence can be produced by electron capture during grazing-angle scattering of ion beams at ferromagnetic surfaces. This can be used to generate a long-lived reservoir of Li 1s2s2p P5204 with enough density of metastables so that after laser-induced transfer to Li 1s2p2P2 strong lasing at 207 Å should occur. This novel technique can also be used to produce a variety of other metastables known as potential candidates for lasing at shorter wavelengths

Electron impact calculations of total elastic cross sections over a wide energy range – 0.01 eV to 2 keV for CH₄, SiH₄ and H₂O

In this paper we report the results of a new theoretical methodology for determining the total elastic electron scattering cross section, Qel, over a wide range of incident energies between 0.01 eV and 2 keV. We have combined results from the UK molecular R-matrix code using Quantemol-N software to determine Qel for incident energies between 0.01 eV and the ionization threshold of the target with calculations based on the spherical complex optical potential formalism for higher energies up to 2 keV. We present results for three selected molecular targets; CH4, SiH4 and H2O as exemplars of the methodology. The present results were found to be in good agreement with previous experimental and theoretical results. The total elastic cross sections for such a wide energy range are reported perhaps for the first time

Action Research is Similar to Design Science

action research, design science, research method, qualitative method,