Development of Basic Components of Decision Making

描述(由申请人提供)： 对物质使用、滥用和依赖的研究表明，青春期是物质成瘾风险增加的时期。在这一发展阶段，糟糕的判断和决策可能导致使用次优选择，并最终滥用物质。这个应用程序检查认知和神经过程的发展，这些过程可能会使青少年面临更大的药物滥用风险。我们将测试关于青春期决策发展的具体假设，以及这些过程如何受到奖励和情绪操纵以及风险和冲动倾向的影响。我们将在所有四个具体目标上使用一个进行/不进行任务的修改版本和一个双选项决策任务，操纵所做选择的奖励或情感意义。强化学习的正式模型和决策原理以及功能神经成像将被用来约束我们关于决策过程中发展和个人行为差异的假设。这项拟议的研究计划将为RFA列为示范研究领域的13个主题领域中的10个提供信息。这些研究将在绘制青少年决策发展的图谱方面奠定关键的科学和方法论基础，为随后关于青少年药物使用和滥用的研究奠定基础。拟议的研究是对RFA#DA-04-009《与青少年药物滥用有关的行为和认知过程》的回应。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Studies of substance use, abuse and dependence suggest that adolescence is a time of increased risk for substance addiction. Poor judgment and decision making during this period of development may lead to suboptimal choices to use and ultimately abuse substances. This application examines the development of cognitive and neural processes underlying decision-making that may place adolescents at greater risk for substance abuse. We will test specific hypotheses regarding the development of decision-making during adolescence and how these processes are biased by reward and emotion manipulations as well as by risky and impulsive tendencies. We will use a modified version of a go/no go task and a two-choice decision task across all four specific aims, manipulating the reward or emotional significance of choices to be made. Formal models of reinforcement learning and principles of decision making together with functional neuroimaging will be used to constrain our hypotheses about developmental and individual behavioral differences in decision making. This proposed program of research will inform 10 of the 13 topic areas this RFA listed as exemplar areas of research. These studies will lay the critical groundwork, both scientific and methodologic, in mapping the development of decision making in adolescents, for subsequent studies on substance use and abuse in adolescents. The proposed studies are in response to RFA # DA-04-009 Behavioral and Cognitive Processes Related to Adolescent Drug Abuse.