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Brain Activity During Antisaccades to Faces in Adolescence
Alia Afyouni1, Franziska Geringswald1, Bruno Nazarian2
1Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LNC, Marseille, France.
Cerebral Cortex Communications
|November 22, 2021
Summary
Adolescents show unique brain activity when social stimuli influence their inhibitory control, suggesting a special developmental stage for processing social information and cognitive tasks.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Cognitive control and social perception undergo significant changes during adolescence.
- The interaction between these developing processes remains poorly understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate developmental changes in brain activity during adolescence.
- To examine how social stimuli influence cognitive and inhibitory control.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study brain activity.
- Participants (children, adolescents, adults) performed an antisaccade task.
- Visual stimuli included faces (social) and cars (non-social).
Main Results:
- All age groups engaged oculomotor and face perception regions.
- Frontoparietal and fusiform regions showed increased age-related involvement.
- Adolescents uniquely demonstrated stimulus-category modulation of antisaccade activity in specific brain regions.
Conclusions:
- Adolescence represents a unique period for the interaction of social perception and cognitive control.
- Social stimuli receive distinct neural processing during adolescence, impacting inhibitory control.
- Findings highlight the special neural treatment of social information during adolescent development.
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