Thumbs up or thumbs down: neural processing of social feedback and links to social motivation in adolescent girls

Neural Sensitivity to Peer Feedback and Depressive Symptoms: Moderation by Executive Function

Theories of adolescent development suggest that elevated neural sensitivity to social evaluation confers tradeoffs for adolescents' wellbeing, promoting adaptation to changing social contexts but increasing risk for emotional distress and depression. This study investigated whether the association between neural processing of peer feedback and depressive symptoms depends on teacher-reported executive function (EF) ability in adolescent girls. Girls showed activation to negative and positive peer feedback in regions implicated in social-emotional processing that interacted with EF to predict depressive symptoms. Specifically, activation predicted more depression in youth with poorer EF but less depression in youth with better EF, suggesting that the impact of increased social sensitivity may depend on youths' ability to regulate this sensitivity in adaptive ways.

Effort expenditure modulates feedback evaluations involving self-other agreement: evidence from brain potentials and neural oscillations

The influence of effort expenditure on the subjective value in feedback involving material reward has been the focus of previous research. However, little is known about the impact of effort expenditure on subjective value evaluations when feedback involves reward that is produced in the context of social interaction (e.g. self-other agreement). Moreover, how effort expenditure influences confidence (second-order subjective value) in feedback evaluations remains unclear. Using electroencephalography, this study aimed to address these questions. Event-related potentials showed that, after exerting high effort, participants exhibited increased reward positivity difference in response to self-other (dis)agreement feedback. After exerting low effort, participants reported high confidence, and the self-other disagreement feedback evoked a larger P3a. Time-frequency analysis showed that the high-effort task evoked increased frontal midline theta power. In the low (vs. high)-effort task, the frontal midline delta power for self-other disagreement feedback was enhanced. These findings suggest that, at the early feedback evaluation stage, after exerting high effort, individuals exhibit an increased sensitivity of subjective value evaluation in response to self-other agreement feedback. At the later feedback evaluation stage, after completing the low-effort task, the self-other disagreement feedback violates the individuals'high confidence and leads to a metacognitive mismatch.

The impact of social hierarchies on neural response to feedback evaluations after advice giving

Advisors generally evaluate advisee-relevant feedback after advice giving. The response to these feedback-(1) whether the advice is accepted and (2) whether the advice is optimal-usually involves prestige. Prior literature has found that prestige is the basis by which individuals attain a superior status in the social hierarchy. However, whether advisors are motivated to attain a superior status when engaging in advice giving remains uncharacterized. Using event-related potentials, this study investigates how advisors evaluate feedback after giving advice to superior (vs. inferior) status advisees. A social hierarchy was first established based on two advisees (one was ranked as superior status and another as inferior status) as well as participants' performance in a dot-estimation task in which all participants were ranked as medium status. Participants then engaged in a game in which they were assigned roles as advisors to a superior or inferior status advisee. Afterward, the participants received feedback in two phases. In Phase 1, participants were told whether the advisees accepted the advice provided. In Phase 2, the participants were informed whether the advice they provided was correct. In these two phases, when the advisee was of superior status, participants exhibited stronger feedback-related negativity and P300 difference in response to (1) whether their advice was accepted, and (2) whether their advice was correct. Moreover, the P300 was notably larger when the participants' correct advice led to a gain for a superior-status advisee. In the context of advice giving, advisors are particularly motivated to attain a superior status when the feedback involving social hierarchies, which is reflected in higher sensitivity to feedback associated with superior status advisees at earlier and later stages during feedback evaluations in brains.

The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Brain Networks in Response to Social Evaluation Tasks

Sleep loss may lead to negative bias during social interaction. In the current study, we conducted a revised social evaluation task experiment to investigate how sleep deprivation influences the self-referential and cognitive processes of social feedback. The experiment consisted of a first impression task and a social feedback task. Seventy-eight participants completed the first impression task and were divided into normal and poor sleep groups. The results of an independent samples t-test showed that participants who slept worse were less likely to socialize with others but did not evaluate others as less attractive. Afterward, 22 of the participants from the first impression task were recruited to complete the social feedback task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on the mornings following two different sleep conditions at night: one night of normal sleep and one night of sleep deprivation. The results of this within-subject design study showed that participants who experienced the latter condition showed increased activation within the default mode network (i.e. superior parietal lobule, precuneus, inferior parietal lobule, inferior temporal gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and stronger negative insula functional connectivity (FC) with the precuneus to negative feedback than positive feedback. The altered activation and behavioral pattern may indicate a negative bias for social cues. However, stronger negative coupling may indicate stronger cognitive control, which may protect against potential damage to self-concept. Our study suggested that sleep impairs most social functions, but may protect against impairment of important ones, such as self-concept.

Neural activation to peer acceptance and rejection in relation to concurrent and prospective depression risk in adolescent and pre-adolescent girls

Neurobiological sensitivity to peer interactions is a proposed marker of risk for adolescent depression. We investigated neural response to peer rejection and acceptance in relation to concurrent and prospective depression risk in adolescent and pre-adolescent girls. Participants were 76 girls (Mage=13, 45% racial/ethnic minorities) varying in depression risk: 22 with current major depressive disorder (MDD), 30 at High Risk for MDD based on parental history, and 24 at Low Risk with no psychiatric history. Girls participated in the Chatroom-Interact task-involving rejection and acceptance feedback from fictitious peers-while undergoing functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging. Activation in response to peer rejection and acceptance was extracted from regions of interest. Depressive symptoms were assessed at 6- and 12-month follow-up. Girls with MDD showed blunted left subgenual anterior cingulate response to acceptance versus girls in High and Low Risk groups. Girls in the High Risk group showed greater right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) and right anterior insula (AI) activation to both acceptance and rejection versus girls in the MDD (rTPJ) and Low Risk (rTPJ, AI) groups. Greater rTPJ response to rejection was associated with fewer depressive symptoms at 12-months and mediated the association between High Risk group status and 12-month depressive symptoms; greater rTPJ response to acceptance mediated the association between High Risk and increased 12-month depressive symptoms. Our finding of associations between altered neural response to peer interactions and concurrent and prospective depression risk/resilience highlights the importance of neural underpinnings of social cognition as risk and compensatory adaptations along the pathway to depression.

Social goals in girls transitioning to adolescence: associations with psychopathology and brain network connectivity

The motivation to socially connect with peers increases during adolescence in parallel with changes in neurodevelopment. These changes in social motivation create opportunities for experiences that can impact risk for psychopathology, but the specific motivational presentations that confer greater psychopathology risk are not fully understood. To address this issue, we used a latent profile analysis to identify the multidimensional presentations of self-reported social goals in a sample of 220 girls (9-15 years old, M = 11.81, SD = 1.81) that was enriched for internalizing symptoms, and tested the association between social goal profiles and psychopathology. Associations between social goals and brain network connectivity were also examined in a subsample of 138 youth. Preregistered analyses revealed four unique profiles of social goal presentations in these girls. Greater psychopathology was associated with heightened social goals such that higher clinical symptoms were related to a greater desire to attain social competence, avoid negative feedback and gain positive feedback from peers. The profiles endorsing these excessive social goals were characterized by denser connections among social-affective and cognitive control brain regions. These findings thus provide preliminary support for adolescent-onset changes in motivating factors supporting social engagement that may contribute to risk for psychopathology in vulnerable girls.