Developmental neurobiology of cognitive control and motivational systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2010.01.006Get rights and content

One form of cognitive control is the ability to resist temptation in favor of long-term goal-oriented behavior. Historically, the development of cognitive control capacity has been described by a linear function from infancy to adulthood. However, the context in which control is required impacts behavioral regulation abilities, such that emotionally charged or rewarding contexts can diminish control. More recently, studies have begun to examine the development of cognitive control in contexts that vary in motivation. These studies suggest specific windows of development in which cognitive control capacity is more vulnerable to incentive-based modulation. In this review we highlight the most recent work on neurobiological changes supporting motivational and cognitive development, underscoring the importance of functional organization and development of the underlying circuitry implicated in these processes, and provide a theoretical perspective that moves away from discussing singular functional regions toward considering functional circuitry.

Section snippets

Motivational modulation of cognitive control across development

Incentives can modulate cognitive control in numerous ways. Being rewarded for performance on a given task may make people work harder and ultimately perform better than when not rewarded. Alternatively, the capacity to exert control is challenged when required to suppress thoughts and actions toward appetitive cues. Recent studies of adolescent development have begun to compare cognitive control capacity in relatively neutral versus motivational contexts. These studies suggest a change in

Developmental neurobiology of corticosubcortical control

We have recently proposed a simple and testable neurobiological model of cognitive and motivational processes ([7], see Figure 1) to account for real-world behavior of adolescents that is supported by recent laboratory evidence. This model suggests linear development of top down prefrontal regions relative to a -shaped function for the development of bottom-up striatal regions involved in detecting salient cues in the environment.

Evidence in support of this model comes from animal and human

Conclusions

This is an exciting time in developmental neurobiology research of cognitive and motivational processes, with a surge in studies focused on the development of these processes in adolescence. Recent findings suggest that an enhanced sensitivity to motivational cues in adolescents, represented at the level of the striatum, modulates cognitive control-related processes differently from children and adults. As such, adolescent cognitive control capacity can be enhanced or impaired, depending on

References and recommended reading

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:

  • • of special interest

  • •• of outstanding interest

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NIDA grants DA018879, DA007274, and NIMH grant MH62196. We thank Erika Ruberry and Rebecca Jones for assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.

References (47)

  • J.N. Giedd et al.

    Brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study

    Nat Neurosci

    (1999)
  • E.R. Sowell et al.

    Mapping cortical change across the human life span

    Nat Neurosci

    (2003)
  • D.A. Fair et al.

    Functional brain networks develop from a “local to distributed” organization

    PLoS Comp Biol

    (2009)
  • M.C. Stevens et al.

    Age-related cognitive gains are mediated by the effects of white matter development on brain network integration

    Neuroimage

    (2009)
  • Geier CF, Terwilliger R, Teslovich T, Velanova K, Luna B: Immaturities in reward processing and its influence on...
  • A. Galvan et al.

    Risk-taking and the adolescent brain: who is at risk?

    Dev Sci

    (2007)
  • S. Jazbec et al.

    Age-related influence of contingencies on a saccade task

    Exp Brain Res

    (2006)
  • C.S. Monk et al.

    Adolescent immaturity in attention-related brain engagement to emotional facial expressions

    Neuroimage

    (2003)
  • W. Mischel et al.

    Delay of gratification in children

    Science

    (1989)
  • I.M. Eigsti et al.

    Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood

    Psychol Sci

    (2006)
  • L.K. Eaton et al.

    Youth risk behavior surveillance  United States, 2007, surveillance summaries

    Morbidity Mortality Wkly Rep

    (2008)
  • L.H. Somerville et al.

    A time of change: behavioral and neural correlates of adolescent sensitivity to appetitive and aversive environmental cues

    Brain Cogn

    (2010)
  • D. Yurgelun-Todd

    Emotional and cognitive changes during adolescence

    Curr Opin Neurobiol

    (2007)
  • Cited by (455)

    • Tourism motivation: A complex adaptive system

      2024, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text