Behavioral and Neural Trajectories of Risk Taking for Peer and Parent in Adolescence

• In Event: Caregiving, Neuro-emotional Functioning, and Psychopathology in Adolescence

Abstract

Introduction: Parents and peers are two powerful social figures in adolescents’ lives, with relationships with both figures dramatically evolving during adolescence (e.g., Brown & Larson, 2009; Nickerson & Nagle, 2005). Another characteristic of this developmental window is a rise in risky behaviors, whereby many instances of such behavior directly impact individuals around them such as their parents and peers (e.g., Do et al., 2017). Additionally, the valuation system of the brain (ventral striatum [VS] and ventromedial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC]) functionally developes during adolescence, and may thus differentially encode parent- and peer-related values over time (e.g., Braams & Crone, 2017; D’Argembeau, 2013). In this current study, we investigated the behavioral and neural trajectories of risk taking for parent and best friend from 6th to 9th grade. Methods: In a 3-wave longitudinal study, 173 adolescent participants (Mean age at wave 1 = 12.8; 52.6% female-identifying; 34.7% Hispanic, 29.5% White, 23.1% Black, 9.3% Mixed, 3.5% Other) completed a risky decision-making task in the functional magenetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner where they took risks to win money for their parent and best friend. In this task, participants had to choose between a safe and risky option, where the safe option guaranteed a gain of 15-cents and the risky option could either earn them an amount higher than 15-cents or 0-cents. Results: Unconditional growth models showed that adolescents took general (i.e., overall propensity to take risks) risks similarly for their parent and best friend from 6th to 9th grade. Further, adolescents increasingly took more adaptive (i.e., sensitivity to the expected reward value during risk taking) risks for their best friend, but this trajectory did not significantly differ from parent’s trajectory (Figure 1). At the neural level, the VS-vmPFC functional connectivity during adaptive risk taking for best friend changed quadratically (Figure 2A). Further, we conducted exploratory longitudinal whole-brain analyses to examine neural changes beyond the valuation system. These analyses revealed increases in the posterior insula during general risk taking, and in the intraparietal lobule during adaptive risk taking, for parent versus best friend over time (Figure 2B, C).
Discussion: Results suggest that neural strategies underlying risky behaviors differ as a function of grade, and the type (general versus adaptive) and target (parents versus peers) of risky behaviors. In particular, the exploratory longitudinal whole-brain analyses posit that the general experience of making risky choices for peers versus parents involves differences in self-related, interoceptive processes, whereas being calculated for peers versus parents involves differences in other-related, social-cognitive processes. In sum, neurodevelopmental changes in brain regions implicated in reward and social-cognitive processing distinguish parent- and peer-related information during risk taking from early to mid adolescence.

Authors

• Seh-Joo Kwon, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Jessica S. Flannery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Caitlin Turpyn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Mitchell J Prinstein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Kristen A Lindquist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Eva H Telzer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill