Brain Imaging reward and avoidance circuits in the adolescent brain

Adolescence is a prolonged developmental period in the transition to adulthood that is characterised by significant changes in behaviour, cognition, emotion, and on going brain maturation processes. It is a period associated with high levels of emotionality, anxiety and also higher levels of harmful risk taking behaviours (e.g., Casey et al, 2008; Steinberg et al., 2008). The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a brain area crucially involved in action selection, and reward and avoidance mediated learning, and it is a brain region which is still not fully mature during adolescence. The aim of this project is to explore further how the PFC and related regions (Levita et al, 2015; Howsley & Levita, 2017) process information during adolescence (especially positive and negative outcomes). Unravelling the neuronal circuits underlying these functions in adolescence is essential to understand their operation and understand why adolescents take more risks and why it is an age of enhanced vulnerability to developing mental health disorders and also an age associated with a significant risk of developing disorders of drug abuse and misuse. State of the art electrophysiological (EEG) and fMRI techniques will be used to investigate this question.