Response Inhibition in Adolescents is Moderated by Brain Connectivity and Social Network Structure

Abstract

Self-control is vital for a wide range of outcomes across our lifespan, yet the developmental trajectory of its core components during adolescence remains elusive. Many adolescents can successfully regulate their behavior even when they do not show strong activation in brain regions typically recruited during self-control in adults. Thus, adolescents may rely on other neural and cognitive resources to compensate, including daily experiences navigating and managing complex social relationships that likely bolster self-control processes. Here, we tested whether activity and connectivity in brain systems associated with social cognition (i.e., self-processing and mentalizing) facilitated successful self-control. We measured brain activity using fMRI as 62 adolescents completed a Go/No-Go response inhibition task. Recruitment of social brain systems, especially the self-processing system, was associated with better response inhibition in adolescents. Interestingly, the reliance on the self-processing system was stronger in adolescents with weaker activation in the canonical response inhibition system, suggesting a compensatory role for social brain systems during adolescent development. Furthermore, we examined the importance of social context by computing the size, number of communities, and modularity of our participants real-life social network. We found that adolescents with more friends and more communities in their social networks demonstrated a stronger relationship between response inhibition and recruitment of social brain systems. Collectively, our results identify the importance of social context and its moderating role on the relationship between brain activity and behavior. Furthermore, our results indicate a critical role for social brain systems during the developmental trajectory of self-control throughout adolescence.\n\nSignificance StatementWe employed a network neuroscience approach to investigate the role of social context and social brain systems in facilitating self-control in adolescents. We found that recruitment of social brain systems was associated with better response inhibition in adolescents, especially for adolescents with weaker activation in the response inhibition system. Moreover, adolescents with more friends and communities in their social networks showed stronger relationships between response inhibition and recruitment of social brain systems. Our results advance understanding of how brain systems facilitate self-control in adolescents, and how these brain responses are associated with features of an adolescents real-life social network. Bringing together findings related to brain networks and social networks provides key insights into how biology and environment mutually influence development.