Forgetting the best when predicting the worst: Preliminary observations on neural circuit function in adolescent social anxiety.
Social anxiety disorder typically begins in adolescence, a sensitive period for brain development, when increased complexity and salience of peer relationships requires novel forms of social learning. Disordered social learning in adolescence may explain how brain dysfunction promotes social anxiety. Socially anxious adolescents (n = 15) and adults (n = 19) and non-anxious adolescents (n = 24) and adults (n = 32) predicted, then received, social feedback from high and low-value peers while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A surprise recall task assessed memory biases for feedback. Neural correlates of social evaluation prediction errors (PEs) were assessed by comparing engagement to expected and unexpected positive and negative feedback. For socially anxious adolescents, but not adults or healthy participants of either age group, PEs elicited heightened striatal activity and negative fronto-striatal functional connectivity. This occurred selectively to unexpected positive feedback from high-value peers and corresponded with impaired memory for social feedback. While impaired memory also occurred in socially-anxious adults, this impairment was unrelated to brain-based PE activity. Thus, social anxiety in adolescence may relate to altered neural correlates of PEs that contribute to impaired learning about social feedback. Small samples necessitate replication. Nevertheless, results suggest that the relationship between learning and fronto-striatal function may attenuate as development progresses.
Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, United States. Electronic address: johanna.jarcho@nih.gov.
Johanna M
JM
Jarcho
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, United States.
Adrienne L
AL
Romer
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel.
Tomer
T
Shechner
Department of Psychology, University of Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Adriana
A
Galvan
Department of Human Ecology, Center for Mind and Brain, University of Davis, CA, United States.
Amanda E
AE
Guyer
Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorders, National Institute of Mental Health, United States.
Ellen
E
Leibenluft
Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, United States.
Daniel S
DS
Pine
Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health, United States.
Eric E
EE
Nelson
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net; D010379:Peer Group; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012919:Social Behavior
Development; Learning; Medial prefrontal cortex; Peer feedback; Prediction error; Striatum