The medial prefrontal cortex and the emergence of self-conscious emotion in adolescence
Open accessAbstract
In the present study, we examined the relationship between developmental modulation of socioaffective brain systems and adolescents' preoccupation with social evaluation. Child, adolescent, and adult participants viewed cues indicating that a camera was alternately off, warming up, or projecting their image to a peer during the acquisition of behavioral-, autonomic-, and neural-response (functional MRI) data. Believing that a peer was actively watching them was sufficient to induce self-conscious emotion that rose in magnitude from childhood to adolescence and partially subsided into adulthood. Autonomic arousal was uniquely heightened in adolescents. These behavioral patterns were paralleled by emergent engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and striatum-MPFC connectivity during adolescence, which are thought to promote motivated social behavior in adolescence. These findings demonstrate that adolescents' self-consciousness is related to age-dependent sensitivity of brain systems critical to socioaffective processes. Further, unique interactions between the MPFC and striatum may provide a mechanism by which social-evaluation contexts influence adolescent behavior.
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Adolescents are prone to intensified emotional and stress responses to peer evaluation.
“and are prone to intensified emotional and stress responses to peer evaluation (15–18).”
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- Authors
- Somerville, L. H., Jones, R. M., Ruberry, E. J., Dyke, J. P., Glover, G., & Casey, B. J.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Weill Cornell Medicine (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2013-06-26
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1554-1562
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC3742683
- OpenAlex
- W2107987182
- Cited by
- 405
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 38 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 30 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 12.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (K99MH087813, R00MH087813, K99 MH078713)
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (P41EB015891)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- self-conscious emotions, medial prefrontal cortex, adolescence, social evaluation, autonomic arousal, self-consciousness
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Brain, Brain Mapping, Caudate Nucleus, Child, Emotions, Female, Galvanic Skin Response, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Neural Pathways, Peer Group, Self Concept, Neostriatum, Prefrontal Cortex, Adolescent Development, Young Adult, Functional Neuroimaging
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