Developmental Changes in the Integration of Affective and Cognitive Corticostriatal Pathways are Associated with Reward-Driven Behavior

Cereb Cortex. 2018 Aug 1;28(8):2834-2845. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx162.

Abstract

The relative influence of affective and cognitive processes on behavior is increasingly understood to transform through development, from adolescence into adulthood, but the neuroanatomical mechanisms underlying this change are not well understood. We analyzed diffusion magnetic resonance imaging in 115 10- to 28-year-old participants to identify convergent corticostriatal projections from cortical systems involved in affect and cognitive control and determined the age-related differences in their relative structural integrity. Results indicate that the relative integrity of affective projections, in relation to projections from cognitive control systems, decreases with age and is positively associated with reward-driven task performance. Together, these findings provide new evidence that developmental differences in the integration of corticostriatal networks involved in affect and cognitive control underlie known developmental decreases in the propensity for reward-driven behavior into adulthood.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Affect / physiology*
  • Age Factors
  • Anisotropy
  • Attention / physiology
  • Brain Mapping
  • Cerebral Cortex / diagnostic imaging
  • Cerebral Cortex / growth & development*
  • Child
  • Cognition / physiology*
  • Corpus Striatum / diagnostic imaging
  • Corpus Striatum / growth & development*
  • Female
  • Functional Laterality
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Neural Pathways / diagnostic imaging
  • Neural Pathways / physiology*
  • Oxygen / blood
  • Regression Analysis
  • Reward*
  • Sex Characteristics
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Oxygen