Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cognition

In the paper

“In addition to executive functions, there is evidence that the prefrontal cortex is involved in several other high-level cognitive capacities, including self-awareness (Ochsner, 2004) and theory of mind (Frith & Frith, 2003)”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Ochsner, 2004 source
• Supported

  The opening summary states that the medial prefrontal cortex is consistently activated during mentalizing (theory-of-mind) tasks. In the citing sentence, Frith and Frith (2003) is attached to theory of mind; self-awareness is attributed to a different source. (LLM, conf=0.94)

  cites Frith & Frith, 2003 source

In the paper

“In terms of grey matter density, they found that sensory and motor brain regions matured first.This was followed by the remainder of the cortex maturing from the back to the front (parietal cortex to frontal cortex).The loss of grey matter occurred last in the superior temporal cortex.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  Split into 2 atoms — 2 confirmed, 0 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.

  cites Gogtay et al. (2004) source

In the paper

“The amygdala has consistently been associated with emotion processing (Dolan, 2002;Phillips, Drevets, Rauch, & Lane, 2003).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The S C I E N C E ' S C O M P A S S section describes accumulating evidence that the amygdala mediates emotional influences on perception. The Conclusions also include the amygdala among brain structures that mediate emotion, supporting the broad association in the claim. Page numbers are not supplied in the provided passages. (LLM, conf=0.94)

  cites Dolan, 2002 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Phillips et al., 2003 source

In the paper

“This transition from childhood to adulthood is also characterised by dramatic changes in identity, self-consciousness and cognitive flexibility (Rutter & Rutter, 1993).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Rutter & Rutter, 1993

In the paper

“The results showed a higher volume of white matter in the frontal cortex and parietal cortex in the older children than in the younger group.The younger group, by contrast, had a higher volume of grey matter in the same regions.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sowell et al., 1999 source

In the paper

“and in light of histological studies, this has consistently been interpreted as reflecting continued axonal myelination during childhood and adolescence.”

In the paper

“Individual growth patterns revealed heterochronous grey matter development during adolescence.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Giedd et al. (1999a)

In the paper

“The volume of grey matter in the frontal lobe increased during pre-adolescence with a peak occurring at around 12 years for males and 11 years for females.This was followed by a decline during post-adolescence.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Giedd et al. (1999a)

In the paper

“According to these data, synaptic pruning occurs throughout adolescence and results in a net decrease in synaptic density in the frontal lobes during this time.”

In the paper

“Whereas sensory and motor brain regions become fully myelinated in the first few years of life, although the volume of brain tissue remains stable, axons in the frontal cortex continue to be myelinated well into adolescence (Yakovlev & Lecours, 1967).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Yakovlev & Lecours, 1967

In the paper

“Thus, rather than a simple linear change in grey matter with age, studies suggest perturbation in grey matter density development that more or less coincides with the onset of puberty.At puberty, grey matter volume in the frontal lobe reaches a peak, followed by a plateau after puberty and then a decline throughout adolescence continuing until early adulthood.”

In the paper

“Luna et al., for example, showed that performance on an oculomotor task undergoes a large improvement from childhood to adolescence, followed by a plateau between adolescence and early adulthood (Luna et al., 2004a).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Luna et al., 2004a

In the paper

“Only later, after puberty, are the excess synapses pruned into specialised, efficient networks which may explain the post-pubescent improvement on this table (McGivern et al., 2002).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites McGivern et al., 2002 source

In the paper

“In other words, the increase in grey matter at puberty reflects a sudden increase in the number of synapses.At some point after puberty, there is a process of refinement such that these excess synapses are eliminated (Huttenlocher, 1979), resulting in a steady decline in grey matter density.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Huttenlocher, 1979

In the paper

“The results revealed a reduction in grey matter density in the dorsal prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortices, which was accompanied by an increase in white matter.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sowell et al., 2003 source

In the paper

“Accumulating new social experiences, for example, when entering a new school, may influence the development of social cognitive processes.”

In the paper

“For example, in a longitudinal study, it was found that boys had 10% greater total cortical grey matter volume than girls, but that developmental trajectories of grey and white matter volume were not significantly different (Giedd et al., 1999a).”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Giedd et al., 1999a

In the paper

“In the older group (11 to 15 years) a localised grey matter decrease in the frontal cortex was observed.This study provided further evidence of a sharp acceleration of grey matter density loss between childhood and adolescence in dorsal frontal cortex.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Thompson et al. (2000) source

In the paper

“A significant age-related increase in white matter volume in the left IFG was found in boys but no significant volumetric changes were found in girls in any frontal regions (see Figure 3).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Blanton et al., 2004 source

In the paper

“A significant improvement in both the efficiency and quality of strategies was found between the ages of 6 and 10.However, between the ages of 10 and 14, there was no significant change in performance.The adult group (mean age 25), on the other hand, significantly outperformed the children.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Mackinlay, Charman, & Karmiloff-Smith, 2003

In the paper

“The authors therefore suggested that prospective memory continues to develop during adolescence, in line with the notion of frontal maturation in the brain.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Mackinlay, Charman, & Karmiloff-Smith, 2003

In the paper

“The main changes that have been observed are a non-linear reduction in frontal grey matter density and a simultaneous linear increase in white matter.”

In the paper

“Prospective memory is associated with frontal lobe activity (Burgess, Veitch, Costello, & Shallice, 2000) and has been shown to develop through childhood as we develop our future-oriented thought and action (Ellis & Kvavilashvili, 2000).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Burgess, Veitch, Costello, & Shallice, 2000 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Ellis & Kvavilashvili, 2000

In the paper

“Improvement during adolescence was observed on tasks of selective attention, working memory and problem solving, whereas strategic behaviour, as tested by the Tower of London task (Shallice, 1982), seemed to have been formed earlier in childhood.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Shallice, 1982 source

In the paper

“For example, sensitive periods for learning phonemes of one's mother tongue occur in the first six months of life (Kuhl et al., 1992)”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Kuhl et al., 1992 source

In the paper

“The results of this study revealed that children performed worse on the task and had on average 60% greater activation in the left inferior frontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex than did adults.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Gaillard et al., 2000 source

In the paper

“fMRI data revealed age-related increases in activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus extending to the orbitofrontal cortex and, consistent with Casey et al.'s results, age-related decreases in activation in both the left superior and middle frontal gyrus extending to the cingulate.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Tamm, Menon, & Reiss, 2002 source

In the paper

“These results demonstrated a dissociation between prefrontal areas in the development of inhibitory control and a negative correlation between age and brain activation.”

In the paper

“If one group's task performance is worse than that of the other group, then any difference in brain activity between the two groups is difficult to interpret.”

In the paper

“Thus the activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex could be negatively correlated with behavioural performance (as interpreted from error rates), as distinct from the orbitofrontal cortex whose activation increased with improvement in behavioural performance.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Casey et al., 1997 source

In the paper

“Much of the literature has focused on early development of facial recognition (Nelson, 1987).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Nelson, 1987 source

In the paper

“While there was no difference in accuracy on the task with age, reaction times to inhibit responses successfully significantly decreased with age.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Tamm, Menon, & Reiss, 2002 source

In the paper

“On the other hand, adolescents showed greater activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the 'not good' ideas and there was a significant correlation between DLPFC activation and reaction time.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Baird, Fugelsang, & Bennett, 2005

In the paper

“In particular, recognition of fear and disgust showed the greatest linear improvements with age, while there was no improvement in the ability to recognise sad and angry expressions in this age range.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Lawrence et al., submitted

In the paper

“However, this was followed by a decline around the age of puberty.Between ages 10 and 12, participants showed a drop in accuracy of over 10%.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Carey et al., 1980 source

In the paper

“While the location of activation was essentially the same for both age groups, there was a significantly higher volume of prefrontal activation in children than in adults, specifically in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and extending into the cingulate.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Casey et al., 1997 source

In the paper

“Recognition of facial expressions of emotion is one area of social cognition that has been investigated during adolescence (see Herba & Phillips, 2004).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Herba & Phillips, 2004 source

In the paper

“One remaining issue is the confounding effect of task performance differences in fMRI studies.”

In the paper

“In this paper, we have focused on research in developmental cognitive neuroscience, but a richer account of changes in adolescent learning, and strategic and social behaviour requires a multidisciplinary approach that recognises the complex interactions between genetics, brain structure, physiology and chemistry and the environment.”

In the paper

“The finding that changes in brain structure continue into adolescence and early adulthood challenged accepted views and has given rise to a recent spate of investigations into the way cognition might change as a consequence.”

In the paper

“These fMRI results suggest that both the brain's emotion processing and cognitive appraisal systems develop during adolescence.”

In the paper

“The finding that changes in brain structure continue into adolescence and early adulthood challenged accepted views and has given rise to a recent spate of investigations into the way cognition might change as a consequence.”

In the paper

“Neither of these studies contained an adult or a younger child group, so comparisons before and after puberty of the neural processing of facial emotion could not be made.”

In the paper

“Studying the development of adolescent cognition using complementary in vivo methods that exploit the advantages of each -such as combining fMRI with electroencephalography (EEG) or diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) -within a theoretical framework that regards motor, affective, social and perceptual functions as intertwined promises to further inform our understanding of typical and atypical”

In the paper

“Longitudinal studies of the effect of early deprivation on the cognitive development of Romanian adoptees in the UK have begun to investigate this question (O'Connor & Rutter, 2000).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites O'Connor & Rutter, 2000 source

In the paper

“Furthermore, there was no exploration of how age affects emotion expression processing.”

In the paper

“The study of the development of executive function and social cognition beyond childhood is a new but rapidly evolving field with applications for medical diagnosis, education and social policy.”