Abstract
When pursuing high-value goals, mature individuals typically titrate cognitive performance according to environmental demands. However, it remains unclear whether adolescents similarly integrate value-based goals to selectively enhance goal-directed behavior. We used a value-contingent cognitive control task during fMRI to assess how stakes—the value of a prospective outcome—modulate flexible goal-directed behavior and underlying neurocognitive processes. Here we demonstrate that while adults enhance performance during high stakes, adolescents perform similarly during low and high stakes conditions. The developmental emergence of value-contingent performance is mediated by connectivity between the striatum and prefrontal cortex; this connectivity selectively increases during high stakes and with age. These findings suggest that adolescents may not benefit from high stakes to the same degree adults do—a behavioral profile that may be constrained by ongoing maturation of corticostriatal connectivity. We propose that late development of corticostriatal connectivity sets the stage for optimal goal-directed behavior.
Highlights
When pursuing high-value goals, mature individuals typically titrate cognitive performance according to environmental demands
The stakes by age by target type interaction was not significant, F(1,86) = 0.05, p = 0.83, indicating that high stakes sharpen adult performance equivalently for go and no-go trials. This finding suggests that high stakes facilitate motor inhibition per se but rather the superordinate process of flexible action selection and cognitive control
Results demonstrated that adults enhanced the selection and execution of cognitive control during high stakes, consistent with prior research in adult samples[1, 21, 23, 24, 42]
Summary
When pursuing high-value goals, mature individuals typically titrate cognitive performance according to environmental demands. The developmental emergence of value-contingent performance is mediated by connectivity between the striatum and prefrontal cortex; this connectivity selectively increases during high stakes and with age These findings suggest that adolescents may not benefit from high stakes to the same degree adults do—a behavioral profile that may be constrained by ongoing maturation of corticostriatal connectivity. Other studies show no effect of incentives on adults’ cognitive control[40], which conflicts with the literature on adult value-contingent performance[21, 23, 24, 41, 42] It remains unknown how high stakes influence adolescents’ cognitive control in maximally reactive control contexts[43] (such as the go/no-go task context) where the need for control is not signaled in advance and can only be instantiated in the moment, which requires flexible action selection and continual context monitoring[14, 44]
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