title: Feasibility of functional neuroimaging to understand adolescent women's sexual decision making.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  For young women, new sexual experiences normatively increase after puberty and coincide with extensive changes to brain regions governing self-regulation of risk behavior. These neurodevelopmental changes could leave some young women vulnerable for negative sexual outcomes, including sexually transmitted infection and unintended pregnancy. We evaluated the feasibility of using functional neuroimaging to understand the sexual decision making of adolescent women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Adolescent women (N = 14; 14-15 years) completed enrollment interviews, a neuroimaging task gauging neural activation to appetitive stimuli, and 30 days of prospective diaries following the scan characterizing daily affect and sexual behaviors. Descriptive and inferential statistics assessed the association between imaging and behavioral data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Young women were highly compliant with neuroimaging and diary protocol. Neural activity in a cognitive-affective network, including prefrontal and anterior cingulate regions, was significantly greater during low-risk decisions. Compared with other decisions, high-risk sexual decisions elicited greater activity in the anterior cingulate, and low-risk sexual decision elicited greater activity in regions of the visual cortex. Young women's sexual decision ratings were linked to their sexual history characteristics and daily self-reports of sexual emotions and behaviors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is feasible to recruit and retain a cohort of female participants to perform a functional magnetic resonance imaging task focused on making decisions about sex, on the basis of varying levels of hypothetical sexual risk, and to complete longitudinal prospective diaries following this task. Preliminary evidence suggests that risk level differentially impacts brain activity related to sexual decision making in these women, which may be related to past and future sexual behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Section of Adolescent Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana; Department of Sociology, Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana. Electronic address: djhensel@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Devon J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Hensel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana.
authors.forename: Tom A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Hummer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
authors.forename: Lindsay R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Acrurio
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: James
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Section of Adolescent Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana.
authors.forename: J Dennis
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Fortenberry
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Adolescent women; Neuroimaging; Sexual decision making