Recent neuroscientific studies have pinpointed a relative imbalance between the development of subcortical-affective and prefrontal-control brain networks that creates specific sensitivities during adolescence. Despite these advances in understanding adolescent brain development, there is a strong need for a more mechanistic understanding of the way these limbic and frontal-cortical areas interact and contribute to adolescents’ risky and social decision-making. We discuss a neuroeconomic approach that has the potential to significantly forward the understanding of decision making in adolescence.
AmodioD. M.FrithC. D. (2006). Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Review Neuroscience, 7, 268–277.
2.
BergJ.DickhautJ.McCabeK. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10, 122–142.
3.
BjorkJ. M.SmithA. R.ChenG.HommerD. W. (2010). Adolescents, adults and rewards: Comparing motivational neurocircuitry recruitment using fMRI. PLoS ONE, 5, e11440.
4.
BlakemoreS. J. (2008). The social brain in adolescence. Nature Review Neuroscience, 9, 267–277.
5.
CohenJ. R.AsarnowR. F.SabbF. W.BilderR. M.BookheimerS. Y.KnowltonB. J.PoldrackR. A. (2010). A unique adolescent response to reward prediction errors. Nature Neuroscience, 13, 669–671.
6.
CroneE. A.DahlR. E. (2012). Understanding adolescence as a period of social-affective engagement and goal flexibility. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13, 636–650.
7.
DahlR. E. (2004). Adolescent brain development: A period of vulnerabilities and opportunities. Keynote address. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 1–22.
8.
DahlR. E.GunnarM. R. (2009). Heightened stress responsiveness and emotional reactivity during pubertal maturation: Implications for psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 1–6.
9.
DennyB. T.KoberH.WagerT. D.OchsnerK. N. (2012). A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of self- and other judgments reveals a spatial gradient for mentalizing in medial prefrontal cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24, 1742–1752.
10.
ErnstM.FudgeJ. L. (2009). A developmental neurobiological model of motivated behavior: Anatomy, connectivity and ontogeny of the triadic nodes. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 33, 367–382.
11.
FignerB.MackinlayR.WilkeningF.WeberE. (2009). Affective and deliberative processes in risky choice: Age differences in risk taking in the Columbia Card Task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35, 709–730.
12.
FignerB.WeberE. (2011). Who takes risk when and why? Determinants of risk taking. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 211–216.
13.
GalvanA. (2010). Adolescent development of the reward system. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 4, 1–9.
14.
GüroğluB.HaselagerG. J.Van LieshoutC. F.TakashimaA.RijpkemaM.FernandezG. (2008). Why are friends special? Implementing a social interaction simulation task to probe the neural correlates of friendship. NeuroImage, 39, 903–910.
15.
HaberS. N.KnutsonB. (2010). The reward circuit: Linking primate anatomy and human imaging. Neuropsychopharmacology, 35, 4–26.
16.
KleibeukerS. W.De DreuC. K. W.CroneE. A. (2013). The development of creative cognition across adolescence: Distinct trajectories for insight and divergent thinking. Developmental Science, 16, 2–12.
17.
KrainA.WilsonA.ArbuckleR.CastellanosF. X.MilhamM. P. (2006). Distinct neural mechanisms of risk and ambiguity: A meta-analysis of decision making. NeuroImage, 32, 477–484.
18.
LevyI.SnellJ.NelsonA. J.RustichiniA.GlimcherP. (2010). Neural representation of subjective value under risk and ambiguity. Journal of Neurophysiology, 103, 1036–1047.
19.
LucianaM.WahlstromD.PorterJ. N.CollinsP. F. (2012). Dopaminergic modulation of incentive motivation in adolescence: Age-related changes in signaling, individual differences, and implications for the development of self-regulation. Developmental Psychology, 48, 844–861.
20.
MohrP. N.BieleG.HeekerenH. R. (2010). Neural processing of risk. Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 6613–6619.
21.
PaulsenD. J.PlattM. L.HuettelS. A.BrannonE. M. (2011). Decision-making under risk in children, adolescents, and young adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, Article 72.
22.
PfeiferJ. H.AllenN. B. (2012). Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends in Cognitive Science, 16, 322–329.
23.
PfeiferJ. H.LiebermanM. D.DaprettoM. (2007). “I know you are but what am I?!”: Neural bases of self- and social knowledge retrieval in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 1323–1337.
24.
RangelA.CamererC.MontagueP. R. (2008). A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9, 545–556.
25.
RillingJ. K.SanfeyA. G. (2011). The neuroscience of social decision-making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 23–48.
26.
SaxeR.KanwisherN. (2003). People thinking about thinking people: The role of the temporo-parietal junction in “theory of mind.”NeuroImage, 19, 1835–1842.
27.
SharpC.MonterossoJ.MontagueP. R. (2012). Neuroeconomics: A bridge for translational research. Biological Psychiatry, 72, 87–92.
28.
SomervilleL.JonesR.CaseyB. (2010). A time of change: Behavioral and neural correlates of adolescent sensitivity to appetitive and aversive environmental cues. Brain and Cognition, 72, 124–133.
29.
SpearL. P. (2011). Rewards, aversions and affect in adolescence: Emerging convergences across laboratory animal and human data. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 1, 392–400.
30.
SteinbergL. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78–106.
31.
TymulaA.Rosenberg BelmakerL. A.RoyA. K.RudermanL.MansonK.GlimcherP. W.LevyI. (2012). Adolescents risk taking behavior is explained by a tolerance to ambiguity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 109, 17135–17140.
32.
Van den BosW.CohenM. X.KahntT.CroneE. A. (2012). Striatum-medial prefrontal cortex connectivity predicts developmental changes in reinforcement learning. Cerebral Cortex, 22, 1247–1255.
33.
Van den BosW.Van DijkE.WestenbergM.RomboutsS. A.CroneE. A. (2009). What motivates repayment? Neural correlates of reciprocity in the trust game. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 4, 294–304.
34.
Van den BosW.Van DijkE.WestenbergM.RomboutsS. A.CroneE. A. (2011). Changing brains, changing perspectives: The neurocognitive development of reciprocity. Psychological Science, 22, 60–70.
35.
Van den BosW.WestenbergM.Van DijkE.CroneE. A. (2010). Development of trust and reciprocity in adolescence. Cognitive Development, 25, 90–102.
36.
Van DuijvenvoordeA. C.JansenB. R.BredmanJ. C.HuizengaH. M. (2012). Age-related changes in decision making: Comparing informed and noninformed situations. Developmental Psychology, 48, 192–203.
37.
Van DuijvenvoordeA. C.JansenB. R.VisserI.HuizengaH. (2010). Affective and cognitive decision-making in adolescents. Developmental Neuropsychology, 35, 539–554.
38.
Van LeijenhorstL.Gunther MoorB.Op de MacksZ. A.RomboutsS. A.WestenbergP. M.CroneE. A. (2010). Adolescent risky decision-making: Neurocognitive development of reward and control regions. NeuroImage, 51, 345– 355.
39.
Van LeijenhorstL.ZanolieK.Van MeelC.WestenbergP. M.RomboutsS. A.CroneE. A. (2010). What motivates the adolescent? Brain regions mediating reward sensitivity across adolescence. Cerebral Cortex, 20, 61–69.
40.
Van OverwalleF. (2009). Social cognition and the brain: A meta-analysis. Human Brain Mapping, 30, 829–858.
41.
WeberE. U.BlaisA.BetzN. E. (2002). A domain-specific risk-attitude scale: Measuring risk perceptions and risk behaviors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15, 263–290.
