Neural Correlates of Reward Processing in Typical and Atypical Development

• Main Authors: Emma G. Duerden PhD, Minha Lee BSc, Stephanie Chow BSc, Julie Sato BSc, Kathleen Mak-Fan PhD, Margot J. Taylor PhD
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2016-09-01
• Series: Child Neurology Open
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2329048X16667350

Atypically developing children including those born preterm or who have autism spectrum disorder can display difficulties with evaluating rewarding stimuli, which may result from impaired maturation of reward and cognitive control brain regions. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 58 typically and atypically developing children (6-12 years) participated in a set-shifting task that included the presentation of monetary reward stimuli. In typically developing children, reward stimuli were associated with age-related increases in activation in cognitive control centers, with weaker changes in reward regions. In atypically developing children, no age-related changes were evident. Maturational disturbances in the frontostriatal regions during atypical development may underlie task-based differences in activation.