Developmental changes in brain function underlying the influence of reward processing on inhibitory control

Adolescence is a period marked by changes in motivational and cognitive brain systems. However, the development of the interactions between reward and cognitive control processing are just beginning to be understood. Using event-related functional neuroimaging and an incentive modulated antisaccade task, we compared blood-oxygen level dependent activity underlying motivated response inhibition in children, adolescents, and adults. Behaviorally, children and adolescents performed significantly worse than adults during neutral trials. However, children and adolescents showed significant performance increases during reward trials. Adults showed no performance changes across conditions. fMRI results demonstrated that all groups recruited a similar circuitry to support task performance, including regions typically associated with rewards (striatum and orbital frontal cortex), and regions known to be involved in inhibitory control (putative frontal and supplementary eye fields, and posterior parietal cortex, and prefrontal loci). During rewarded trials adolescents showed increased activity in striatal regions, while adults demonstrated heightened activation in the OFC relative to children and adolescents. Children showed greater reliance on prefrontal executive regions that may be related to increased effort in inhibiting responses. Overall, these results indicate that response inhibition is enhanced with reward contingencies over development. Adolescents’ heightened response in striatal regions may be one factor contributing to reward-biased decision making and perhaps risk taking behavior.