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Dysfunctional Social Reinforcement Processing in Disruptive Behavior Disorders: An Functional Magnetic Resonance
Soonjo Hwang1, Harma Meffert2, Michelle R VanTieghem3
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA.
Insights
Children and adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) show altered brain responses to social and non-social rewards during learning. This suggests compromised reinforcement processing and decision-making in DBDs.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) are associated with impaired reward processing.
- Previous research used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study non-social reinforcement in DBDs.
- Neural responses to social reinforcement during learning in DBDs remain understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate neural responses to social and non-social reinforcement during instrumental learning in children and adolescents with DBDs.
- To compare brain activity and functional connectivity between healthy individuals and those with DBDs.
Main Methods:
- fMRI was used to scan 29 healthy participants and 19 participants with DBDs.
- Participants performed a task involving social and non-social rewards/non-rewards linked to fractal image stimuli.
- Connectivity analyses examined functional coupling between brain regions.
Main Results:
- DBDs group showed reduced caudate and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) responses to non-social rewards and social non-rewards.
- Decreased functional connectivity was observed between ventral striatum (VST)/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and lateral frontal cortex in DBDs during reward processing.
- Altered vmPFC-amygdala connectivity was found in response to reward versus non-reward in DBDs.
Conclusions:
- Children/adolescents with DBDs exhibit compromised processing of both social and non-social reinforcement signals.
- Dysfunctional brain network interactions in DBDs may reflect attention deficits towards rewarded stimuli.
- These findings highlight neural underpinnings of decision-making impairments in disruptive behavior disorders.
Objective:
Prior functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) work has revealed that children/adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) show dysfunctional reward/non-reward processing of non-social reinforcements in the context of instrumental learning tasks. Neural responsiveness to social reinforcements during instrumental learning, despite the importance of this for socialization, has not yet been previously investigated.
Methods:
Twenty-nine healthy children/adolescents and 19 children/adolescents with DBDs performed the fMRI social/non-social reinforcement learning task. Participants responded to random fractal image stimuli and received social and non-social rewards/non-rewards according to their accuracy.
Results:
Children/adolescents with DBDs showed significantly reduced responses within the caudate and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) to non-social (financial) rewards and social non-rewards (the distress of others). Connectivity analyses revealed that children/adolescents with DBDs have decreased positive functional connectivity between the ventral striatum (VST) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) seeds and the lateral frontal cortex in response to reward relative to non-reward, irrespective of its sociality. In addition, they showed decreased positive connectivity between the vmPFC seed and the amygdala in response to non-reward relative to reward.
Conclusion:
These data indicate compromised reinforcement processing of both non-social rewards and social non-rewards in children/adolescents with DBDs within core regions for instrumental learning and reinforcement-based decision- making (caudate and PCC). In addition, children/adolescents with DBDs show dysfunctional interactions between the VST, vmPFC, and lateral frontal cortex in response to rewarded instrumental actions potentially reflecting disruptions in attention to rewarded stimuli.
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