2-078 - Neurocognitive Development during Adolescence: Tipping the Balance towards Cognitive Control

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Recent research has provided valuable insights into the factors that might place adolescents at risk for failure in cognitive control. However, adolescence is also a developmental period marked by the strong opportunity for improvement in cognitive functioning and by critical development in brain structure, function and connectivity. The goal of this international symposium is to focus on the neurocognitive mechanisms that foster effective decision-making and cognitive control in adolescence. The symposium aims to integrate research findings from different cognitive domains requiring elements of cognitive control and to identify common as well as specific mechanisms by which different aspects of brain development support adolescents’ ability to effectively control and regulate their learning and behavior.
Paper 1 examines how cortico-striatal connections contribute to self-control during decision-making along with the modulatory effects of pubertal hormones. Paper 2 investigates the development of resting-state connectivity among key nodes in the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, and how these changes relate to the development of cognitive control from adolescence to adulthood. Paper 3 highlights how the development of proactive and reactive control is modulated by reward context and underlying task-related brain activity in adolescence. Finally, Paper 4 examines how structural changes in frontal areas contribute to developmental improvements in metacognitive monitoring in adolescence. Together, by combining multiple neuroscientific methods and cognitive outcomes, along with experimental and longitudinal evidence, this symposium helps identify common trends across brain mechanisms supporting effective cognitive control and decision-making, and emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive approach to adolescent neurocognitive development.

Sub Unit

• Biology and Neuroscience

Chairs

• Yana Fandakova, UC Davis & UC Berkeley

• Simona Ghetti, University of California-Davis

Individual Presentations

• Pubertal and age related changes in self-control development across adolescence - Presenting Author: Wouter van den Bos, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

• Prefrontal-hippocampal resting state connectivity increases through adolescence in parallel with development of forward planning - Presenting Author: Beatriz Luna, University of Pittsburgh; Vishnu Murty, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh; Finnegan Calabro, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh

• Enhancement of cognitive control in rewarding contexts in adolescence and adulthood - Presenting Author: Lucia Magis-Weinberg, Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London; Ruud Custers, Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University; Iroise Dumontheil, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London

• Cortical development and metacognitive monitoring in the transition to adolescence - Presenting Author: Yana Fandakova, UC Davis & UC Berkeley; Diana Selmeczy, University of California, Davis; Silvia Bunge, University of California Berkeley; Simona Ghetti, University of California-Davis