Neurodevelopmental Pathways in Adolescent Health Risk Behavior

描述(由申请人提供)：以边缘为基础的“自下而上”系统，其特征是对动机刺激和奖励的高度反应性，从青春期早期就迅速成熟，而前额叶组织的“自上而下”系统能够实现更有效的认知控制和判断，成熟较慢(Casey&Jones，2010)。这种不匹配被认为是青少年健康危险行为的关键因素，这一点至关重要，因为：(1)危险行为是这一年龄组发病率和死亡率的主要原因，包括无保护措施的性行为引起的疾病和鲁莽行为造成的伤亡(包括驾驶死亡和重伤)；(2)这是一系列具有潜在长期后果的危险行为模式的发病高峰期，包括药物使用和滥用以及青少年犯罪。然而，发育成熟度不匹配假说还没有在足以告知这一关键健康领域的水平上进行与风险行为相关的直接测试(Pfeifer&Allen，2012)。这项研究的主要目的是通过对年龄差异、发展轨迹以及心理社会、神经认知和神经成像评估中的个体差异的综合分析，了解冒险的行为、认知和神经基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Limbic-based "bottom-up" systems characterized by heightened reactivity to motivational stimuli and rewards mature rapidly from early adolescence, while prefrontally-organized "top- down" systems that enable more effective cognitive control and judgment mature more slowly (Casey & Jones, 2010). This mismatch has been proposed as a key contributor to health risk behavior among adolescents, which is of critical importance because: (1) risk behaviors are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in this age group, including diseases arising from unprotected sexual activity and casualties arising from reckless behavior (including driving fatalities and serious injuries); (2) it is the peak age for the onset f a wide range of risk behavior patterns with potential long-term consequences, including substance use and abuse, and delinquency. The developmental maturity mismatch hypothesis, however, has not been directly tested in relation to risk behavior at a level sufficient to inform this critcal health area (Pfeifer & Allen, 2012). The primary aim of the proposed research is to understand the behavioral, cognitive, and neural bases of risk taking, through integrated analyses of age differences, developmental trajectories, and individual differences in psychosocial, neurocognitive and neural imaging assessments.