Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 42, Issue 20, Pages 4164-4173Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2018-21.2022
Keywords
adolescence; auditory; development; reward; voice; brain
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [K01 MH102428, DC011095, MH084164, DC017950, DC017950-S1]
- Brain and Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investigator Grant
- Singer Foundation
- Simons Foundation [SFARI 308939]
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The social orientation of adolescents shifts from familial social targets to nonfamilial ones, and this change is reflected in distinct neural signatures in reward and social valuation systems. Younger children show greater activation in these brain systems for their mother's voice, while older adolescents show increased activation for nonfamilial voices.
The social worlds of young children primarily revolve around parents and caregivers, who play a key role in guiding children's social and cognitive development. However, a hallmark of adolescence is a shift in orientation toward nonfamilial social targets, an adaptive process that prepares adolescents for their independence. Little is known regarding neurobiological signatures underlying changes in adolescents' social orientation. Using functional brain imaging of human voice processing in children and adolescents (ages 7-16), we demonstrate distinct neural signatures for mother's voice and nonfamilial voices across child and adolescent development in reward and social valuation systems, instantiated in nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. While younger children showed greater activity in these brain systems for mother's voice compared with nonfamilial voices, older adolescents showed the opposite effect with increased activity for nonfamilial compared with mother's voice. Findings uncover a critical role for reward and social valuative brain systems in the pronounced changes in adolescents' orientation toward nonfamilial social targets. Our approach provides a template for examining developmental shifts in social reward and motivation in individuals with pronounced social impairments, including adolescents with autism.
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