Ventral striatal activity links adversity and reward processing in children

Authors

Niki H. Kamkar, Western University
Daniel J. Lewis, Western University
Wouter van den Bos, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
J. Bruce Morton, Western UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-1-2017

Journal

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Volume

26

First Page

20

Last Page

27

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1016/j.dcn.2017.04.002

Abstract

Adversity impacts many aspects of psychological and physical development including reward-based learning and decision-making. Mechanisms relating adversity and reward processing in children, however, remain unclear. Here, we show that adversity is associated with potentiated learning from positive outcomes and impulsive decision-making, but unrelated to learning from negative outcomes. We then show via functional magnetic resonance imaging that the link between adversity and reward processing is partially mediated by differences in ventral striatal response to rewards. The findings suggest that early-life adversity is associated with alterations in the brain's sensitivity to rewards accounting, in part, for the link between adversity and altered reward processing in children.