Validation of a child-friendly version of the monetary incentive delay task

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• The monetary incentive delay (MID) task is a standard neuroimaging paradigm for studying reward anticipation in adults and adolescents.
• The MID task is not suitable for use in children, limiting research on reward processing in this demographic.
• There is a need for child-friendly tasks to investigate neural correlates of incentive processing in developing brains.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate the 'piñata task,' a novel, child-friendly analog of the MID task.
• To assess the feasibility of using the piñata task to study neural activity related to reward anticipation in children.
• To examine behavioral and neural responses to reward cues in a pediatric population.

Main Methods:

• Study #1 involved a behavioral assessment of 8- to 14-year-old children performing the piñata task.
• Study #2 utilized neuroimaging (fMRI) with 8- to 12-year-old children during the piñata task.
• Neural activation patterns were analyzed in reward-processing regions.

Main Results:

• Behavioral data showed faster and more accurate responses for higher potential rewards, with older children exhibiting quicker reaction times.
• Neuroimaging revealed activation patterns in reward regions (striatum, thalamus, mPFC, insula) modulated by incentive value, consistent with adult MID task findings.
• The piñata task elicited expected behavioral and neural responses in children aged 8-12.

Conclusions:

• The piñata task is a valid and effective tool for studying the neural correlates of reward processing in children.
• This task enables neuroscientific research on incentive anticipation in children as young as 8-9 years old.
• Findings support the use of the piñata task for future developmental neuroscience research on reward systems.