Adolescents' Neural Processing of Risky Decisions: Effects of Sex and Behavioral Disinhibition

BACKGROUND Accidental injury and homicide, relatively common among adolescents, often follow risky behaviors; those are done more by boys and by adolescents with greater behavioral disinhibition (BD). HYPOTHESIS Neural processing during adolescents' risky decision-making will differ in youths with greater BD severity, and in males vs. females, both before cautious behaviors and before risky behaviors. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS 81 adolescents (PATIENTS with substance and conduct problems, and comparison youths (Comparisons)), assessed in a 2 x 2 design ( PATIENTS Comparisons x Male:Female) repeatedly decided between doing a cautious behavior that earned 1 cent, or a risky one that either won 5 or lost 10 cents. Odds of winning after risky responses gradually decreased. Functional magnetic resonance imaging captured brain activity during 4-sec deliberation periods preceding responses. Most neural activation appeared in known decision-making structures. PATIENTS, who had more severe BD scores and clinical problems than Comparisons, also had extensive neural hypoactivity. Comparisons' greater activation before cautious responses included frontal pole, medial prefrontal cortex, striatum, and other regions; and before risky responses, insula, temporal, and parietal regions. Males made more risky and fewer cautious responses than females, but before cautious responses males activated numerous regions more than females. Before risky behaviors female-greater activation was more posterior, and male-greater more anterior. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Neural processing differences during risky-cautious decision-making may underlie group differences in adolescents' substance-related and antisocial risk-taking. Patients reported harmful real-life decisions and showed extensive neural hypoactivity during risky-or-cautious decision-making. Males made more risky responses than females; apparently biased toward risky decisions, males (compared with females) utilized many more neural resources to make and maintain cautious decisions, indicating an important risk-related brain sexual dimorphism. The results suggest new possibilities for prevention and management of excessive, dangerous adolescent risk-taking.