A unique adolescent response to reward prediction errors.Nature Neuroscience

Previous work has demonstrated that human adolescents may be hypersensitive to rewards; it is unknown which aspect of reward processing this reflects. We separated decision value and prediction error signals and found that neural prediction error signals in the striatum peaked in adolescence, whereas neural decision value signals varied depending upon how value was modeled. This suggests that one contributor to adolescent reward-seeking may be heightened dopaminergic prediction error responsivity. Adolescence is a unique period in psychological development, characterized by increased risky choices and actions as compared to children and adults. This may reflect the relatively early functional development of limbic affective and reward systems in comparison to prefrontal cortex1, such that adolescents tend to make poor decisions and risky choices more often than both children (who are not yet fully sensitive to rewards) and adults (who are sensitive to rewards, but have the ability to exert control over reward-driven urges). According to behavioral decision theories, choices are driven by the value assigned to each potential choice (decision value)2. Decision value is computed by a system in the media