ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

To read the full abstract: Nat Commun. 2018 Feb 21;9(1):588

Media-related activities take up roughly 6–9 hours of the average American youth’s day. Likely, this plays an important role in adolescent development. Recently, cognitive neuroscience studies have used structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain changes over the course of adolescence. Cognitive and socio-affective development in adolescence is accompanied by extensive changes in the structure and function of the adolescent brain¹. Structurally, white matter connections increase, allowing for more successful communication between the prefrontal cortex and the subcortical striatum. Pruning rates increase in adolescence, resulting in a decrease in synaptic density. In parallel, dynamic nonlinear changes in grey matter volume continue over the whole period of adolescence. Interestingly, changes in grey matter volume are observed most extensively in brain regions that are important for social understanding and communication such as the medial prefrontal cortex, superior temporal cortex and temporal parietal junction. Studies indicate a specific window of sensitivity to social rejection in adolescence, which may be associated with the enhanced activity of striatum and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. Likewise, being socially accepted through “likes” resulted in increased activity in the ventral striatum in children, adolescents and adults. This response is blunted in adolescents who experience depression, or who have experienced a history of maternal negative affect. Data suggest that peer sensitivities are possibly larger in adolescents than in older age groups. Critical question for future research is how neural correlates observed in this review predict future behavior or emotional responses in adolescents.

1. Blakemore SJ, Mills KL. Is adolescence a sensitive period for sociocultural processing? Annu Rev Psychol. 2014;65:187-207.