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Updated: May 3, 2026
An Electrophysiology Protocol to Measure Reward Anticipation and Processing in Children
Published on: October 4, 2018
Lasting associations between early-childhood temperament and late-adolescent reward-circuitry response to peer
Amanda E Guyer1, Brenda Benson2, Victoria R Choate3
1University of California, Davis.
Insights
Early temperament influences brain responses to social feedback. Behaviorally inhibited individuals show altered striatal activity to social rewards, linking childhood temperament to adolescent social neural processing.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Temperament Research
Background:
- Behavioral inhibition (BI), a temperament identified in infancy, is linked to social withdrawal.
- Previous research highlights the striatum's unique response to monetary gains in BI children into adolescence.
- It remains unclear if BI-related striatal alterations extend to social contexts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if striatal response patterns to social feedback differ between behaviorally inhibited and noninhibited adolescents.
- To examine the continuity of early temperament effects on neural responses to social cues in adolescence.
Main Methods:
- Acquired neuroimaging data from 39 adolescents (ages 16-18) characterized for BI since infancy.
- Utilized a social evaluation task assessing neural responses to positive/negative peer feedback.
- Analyzed striatal activity during anticipation and receipt of social rewards.
Main Results:
- Striatal response patterns during anticipation and receipt of social reward differed between BI and non-BI adolescents.
- These findings mirror previous observations with monetary rewards.
- Early-life temperament predicts altered striatal response in both social and nonsocial contexts.
Conclusions:
- Early childhood temperament predicts neural responses to social signals in adolescence.
- Suggests continuity between early temperament and adolescent neural processing of social feedback.
- Highlights the striatum's role in mediating responses to social evaluation based on early temperament.
Abstract:
Behavioral inhibition, a temperament identifiable in infancy, is associated with heightened withdrawal from social encounters. Prior studies raise particular interest in the striatum, which responds uniquely to monetary gains in behaviorally inhibited children followed into adolescence. Although behavioral manifestations of inhibition are expressed primarily in the social domain, it remains unclear whether observed striatal alterations to monetary incentives also extend to social contexts. In the current study, imaging data were acquired from 39 participants (17 males, 22 females; ages 16-18 years) characterized since infancy on measures of behavioral inhibition. A social evaluation task was used to assess neural response to anticipation and receipt of positive and negative feedback from novel peers, classified by participants as being of high or low interest. As with monetary rewards, striatal response patterns differed during both anticipation and receipt of social reward between behaviorally inhibited and noninhibited adolescents. The current results, when combined with prior findings, suggest that early-life temperament predicts altered striatal response in both social and nonsocial contexts and provide support for continuity between temperament measured in early childhood and neural response to social signals measured in late adolescence and early adulthood.
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