Behavioral and neural correlates of loss aversion and risk avoidance in adolescents and adults
Open accessAbstract
Individuals are frequently faced with risky decisions involving the potential for both gain and loss. Exploring the role of both potential gains and potential losses in predicting risk taking is critical to understanding how adolescents and adults make the choice to engage in or avoid a real-life risk. This study aimed to examine the impact of potential losses as well as gains on adolescent decisions during risky choice in a laboratory task. Adolescent (n=18) and adult (n=16) participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a mixed gambles task, and completed questionnaires measuring real-world risk-taking behaviors. While potential loss had a significantly greater effect on choice than potential gain in both adolescents and adults and there were no behavioral group differences on the task, adolescents recruited significantly more frontostriatal circuitry than adults when choosing to reject a gamble. During risk-seeking behavior, adolescent activation in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was negatively correlated with self-reported likelihood of risk taking. During risk-avoidant behavior, mPFC activation of in adults was negatively correlated with self-reported benefits of risk-taking. Taken together, these findings reflect different neural patterns during risk-taking and risk-avoidant behaviors in adolescents and adults.
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Only a handful of studies have explored age differences in brain activity during a risk-taking task, and evidence for mutual involvement of both lateral prefrontal cortex and striatum during risky decision making is scarce.
“Only a handful of studies (see table 1) have explored age differences in brain activity during the performance of a risk-taking task [97, 101–105], and evidence for mutual involvement of both the IPFC and striatum during risky decision making is scarce.”
From The role of the anterior insula in adolescent decision making (2014) · cites this paper as [97]
Behaviorally, adolescents and adults tend to exhibit similar levels of loss-aversion.
“Behaviorally, adolescents and adults tend to exhibit similar levels of loss-aversion”
From Effects of incentives, age, and behavior on brain activation during inhibitory control: a longitudinal fMRI study (2015) · cites this paper as Barkley-Levenson et al., 2012
Neuronally, adolescents recruit striatal and frontal regions to a greater degree than adults when making decisions involving losses.
“while neuronally adolescents recruit striatal and frontal regions to a greater degree than adults when making decisions involving losses (Barkley-Levenson et al., 2012, Weller et al., 2010).”
From Effects of incentives, age, and behavior on brain activation during inhibitory control: a longitudinal fMRI study (2015) · cites this paper as Barkley-Levenson et al., 2012
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References 47 · Cited by 97
- Authors
- Barkley-Levenson, E. E., Van Leijenhorst, L., & Galván, A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Galván, Adriana
- ORCID
- Galván, Adriana
- Venue
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-01
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 72-83
- ISSN
- 1878-9293 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6987718
- OpenAlex
- W2090903044
- Cited by
- 97
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 2.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- UCLA Pre-Doctoral Training Program
- Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- loss aversion, risk avoidance, risk-taking, adolescents, adults, frontostriatal circuits, medial prefrontal cortex, neural correlates of decision making, behavioral development
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Behavior, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Choice Behavior, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Probability, Reward, Risk, Risk-Taking, Prefrontal Cortex, Young Adult
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