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Enhanced FRN and P2 amplitudes in mid-to-late adolescents during the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

An T. Nguyen1*, Jonson Moyle1, 2, 3 and Allison Fox1
  • 1 The University of Western Australia, School of Psychology, Australia
  • 2 Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Department of Paediatric Rehabilitation, Australia
  • 3 MindLink Psychology, Australia

Aim: According to dual-system models of risk-taking, heightened risk-taking behaviour in adolescents could be partly attributed to hyperactivity in the dopaminergic system implicated in reward-related processing (Steinberg, 2008). Using an affectively engaging risk-taking task, we investigated whether risk-taking and the processing of outcomes differ between adolescents and adults. Method: We examined behavioural indices of risk-taking, and the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and feedback P3 elicited during the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART, Lejuez et al., 2003) in mid-to-late adolescents (N = 26, M(age) = 15.57 years, SD(age) = 0.90 years) and adults (N = 24, M(age) = 21.17 years, SD(age) = 3.52 years). Results: Overall FRN and P2 amplitudes were larger in adolescents compared to adults. However, the magnitude of the FRN and feedback P3 effects (i.e. change in amplitude between positive and negative feedback) and behavioural indices of risk-taking did not differ significantly between groups. Conclusions: Similar FRN and feedback P3 effects suggest that the ability to discriminate between outcomes with respect to the current goal state is mature by mid-to-late adolescence. However, larger overall FRN and P2 amplitudes in adolescents suggest that adolescents allocated more attention to feedback stimuli than adults.

References

Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Dev. Rev., 28. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.002

Lejuez, C. W., Aklin, W. M., Jones, H. A., Richards, J. B., Strong, D. R., Kahler, C. W., et al. (2003). The balloon analogue risk task (BART) differentiates smokers and nonsmokers. Exp. Clin. Psychopham. 11:1. doi: 10.1037/1064-1297.11.1.26

Keywords: risk-taking, Feedback-related negativity (FRN), Feedback P3, P2, balloon analogue risk task (BART), adolescence, Adolescent Development

Conference: ASP2016 - The 26th Annual Meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Adelaide Australia, Adelaide,SA, Australia, 12 Dec - 14 Dec, 2016.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Abstract (student award)

Citation: Nguyen AT, Moyle J and Fox A (2016). Enhanced FRN and P2 amplitudes in mid-to-late adolescents during the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. Conference Abstract: ASP2016 - The 26th Annual Meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Adelaide Australia. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2016.221.00032

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Received: 31 Oct 2016; Published Online: 05 Dec 2016.

* Correspondence: Mr. An T Nguyen, The University of Western Australia, School of Psychology, Perth, Western Australia, Australia, an.nguyen@research.uwa.edu.au