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    • tool br A potential adaptive role of dopaminergic reactivity

    2018-11-03


    A potential adaptive role of dopaminergic reactivity in adolescence The view that peaks in DA activity during adolescence underlie increases in risk taking and adolescent psychopathology suggests that adolescents are predisposed toward mental health problems due to hard-wired developmental constraints via altered neural processing. Such a deficit perspective driven by biologically determined tool immaturities implies a ubiquitous, inevitability to adolescent risk taking and psychopathology that constrains our ability to intervene. Moreover, this view emphasizes adolescent problem behaviors over more positive developments and behaviors. While this view is not wrong (i.e., heightened striatal activation does relate to negative outcomes), this perspective is overly simplified (Pfeifer and Allen, 2012) and does not take into consideration how heightened dopaminergic reactivity may be adaptive during this developmental period. Several findings inconsistent with this deficit view challenge the perspective that adolescent reward sensitivity largely serves as a liability and highlights the potential adaptive function that heightened striatal reactivity can serve. One view that has been proposed is that heightened dopaminergic sensitivity increases risk-taking behaviors that may be adaptive for promoting survival and skill acquisition (Spear, 2000). The tendency to approach, explore and take risks during adolescence may serve an adaptive purpose that affords a unique opportunity for adolescents to attain new experiences at a time when youth are primed to learn from their environments and leave the safety of their caregivers (Spear, 2000). Thus, ventral striatum responses can facilitate goal attainment and long-term survival, allowing the adolescent to move toward relative autonomy (Wahlstrom et al., 2010a). In short, this conceptualization suggests that risk taking itself is a normative and adaptive behavior. Heightened ventral striatum reactivity may therefore be an adaptive response as long as the system is not in overdrive and adolescents only engage in moderate levels of risk taking; high levels of risk taking may be detrimental and even life threatening (Spear, 2008). Moreover, the consequences of risk taking are likely to be context dependent. In our modern society, the environments where adolescents engage in risk taking (e.g., driving cars) may result in maladaptive instead of adaptive outcomes (Spear, 2008). Moving beyond the theory that risk taking itself is an adaptive behavior, I propose a new conceptualization and adaptive role of reward sensitivity such that striatal reactivity can actually lead adolescents away from risks and psychopathologies. That is, striatal reactivity can direct adolescents away from the very same behavior thought to arise as a result of peaks in DA neural signaling. Rather than promoting risk taking and psychopathology, recent evidence reveals that heightened striatal reactivity may actually motivate adolescents to engage in more thoughtful, positive behaviors, facilitating improved cognition, and ultimately protect them from developing depression and engaging in health-compromising risk-taking behavior. Indeed, heightened ventral striatum responses, coupled with effective neural regulation, represent “the translation of positive motivation to adaptive action” (Wahlstrom et al., 2010a, pp. 3). Heightened DA signaling may therefore be a neurobiological marker for approach-related behaviors, regardless of the perceived outcome (i.e., adaptive or maladaptive). On the one hand, DA signaling may be channeled toward motivated behaviors that are highly adaptive, such as an orientation toward motivationally positive behaviors (e.g., striving for academic success, engaging in prosocial behaviors, working toward a goal). On the other hand, DA signaling may be directed toward motivated behaviors that can be highly maladaptive depending on situational and contextual variables (e.g., dangerous driving behaviors, risky sexual behaviors). Ventral striatum sensitivity may therefore represent either a vulnerability or an opportunity depending on the social and motivational context (see Table 1). Thus, developmental trajectories in ventral striatum sensitivity may vary across stimuli and contexts.