Improving Adolescent Decision Making Through Cognitive Control Training

描述(申请人提供)：我们实验室最近的研究表明，在青春期，不同大脑系统的不同步发育模式会产生一段时期，对情感刺激的敏感度增加，认知控制能力减弱。特别是在情感突出的同伴环境中，这种监管失衡可能会导致青少年更倾向于从事危险行为(例如，使用药物、无保护的性行为和鲁莽驾驶)，这些行为严重威胁到他们的健康和福祉。在单独的工作中，我们和其他人展示了通过有针对性的工作记忆(WM)训练来改善成年人认知控制的潜力。在目前的提案中，我们的目标是通过使用行为和神经成像方法来测试WM训练的一种新应用，以促进青少年的认知控制能力，从而降低风险，从而架起这两条线的桥梁。我们假设，青少年对冲动和自动行为的控制，特别是在情感突出的背景下，可以通过有针对性的适应性复杂工作记忆训练来改善。我们进一步假设，这种改善的认知控制将使训练有素的青少年参与者具有更强的深思熟虑决策技能，从而降低他们的冒险倾向。使用功能磁共振成像，我们将表征这些行为变化背后的机制。PI和共同PI最近有成功的合作历史，并结合了认知控制和青少年心理社会发展的认知神经科学方面的专业知识。拟议中的研究有可能为青少年行为的理论模型提供大量信息，为影响青少年决策的过程提供基本的见解，确定认知控制的成熟时间表是否可以通过培训加速，并产生减少青少年风险行为的低成本干预措施。 与公共健康相关：过度冒险行为(使用药物、鲁莽驾驶、犯罪等)是对青少年健康和福祉的最大威胁。青少年冒险行为经常发生在充满情感的环境中，这很可能是由于影响决策的认知控制和奖励处理大脑系统不协调成熟的结果。这项拟议的研究将采用行为学和功能磁共振成像方法来研究使用靶向工作记忆(WM)训练来改善与认知控制相关区域的大脑功能的可行性，从而提高青少年对危险决策施加自我调节控制的能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent work in our lab suggests that, during adolescence, asynchronous patterns of development across different brain systems produce a period of increased sensitivity to affective stimuli and diminished capacity for cognitive control. Especially in affectively salient peer contexts, this regulatory imbalance may contribute to adolescents' increased proclivity to engage in risky behaviors (e.g., substance use, unprotected sexual activity, and reckless driving) that significantly threaten their health and well-being. In separate work, we and others have demonstrated the potential to improve adults' cognitive control through targeted working memory (WM) training. In the present proposal, we aim to bridge these two lines of research by using behavioral and neuroimaging methods to test a novel application of WM training to promote adolescents' cognitive control capabilities, and thus reduce risk taking. We hypothesize that adolescents' control over impulsive and automatic behaviors, especially in affectively salient contexts, can be improved through a targeted program of adaptive complex WM training. We further hypothesize that such improved cognitive control will engender trained adolescent participants with enhanced deliberative decision making skills, and hence reduce their proclivity toward risk taking. Using fMRI, we will characterize the mechanisms that underlie these behavioral changes. The PI and co-PI have a recent history of successful collaboration, and combined expertise in the cognitive neuroscience of cognitive control and the psychosocial development of adolescents and young adults. The proposed studies have the potential to greatly inform theoretical models of adolescent behavior, to yield fundamental insights into the processes that affect adolescent decision-making, to determine whether the maturational timetable of cognitive control can be accelerated through training, and to yield a low-cost intervention for reducing adolescent risk behavior. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Excessive risk-taking behavior (substance use, reckless driving, crime, etc.) is the most significant threat to adolescents' health and well-being. Adolescent risk-taking frequently occurs in affectively charged contexts, likely as a result of discordant maturation in the cognitive control and reward processing brain systems that influence decision making. The proposed studies will deploy behavioral and fMRI methodologies to examine the feasibility of using targeted working memory (WM) training to improve brain function in regions associated with cognitive control, and hence increase adolescent' capability to exert self-regulatory control over risky decision making.