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As adolescents acquire agency and become contributing members of society, it is necessary to understand how they help their community. Yet, it is unknown how prosocial behavior develops in the context of community-based prosocial behaviors that are relevant to adolescents, such as donating time to charities. In this longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging study, adolescents (N=172; mean age at wave 1=12.8) completed a prosocial task annually for three years (N=422 and 375 total behavioral and neural data points, respectively), and 14 days of daily diaries reporting on their prosocial behaviors two years later. During the task, adolescents decided how many minutes they would donate to a variety of local charities. We found that adolescents donated less time to charities from early to mid adolescence. Longitudinal whole-brain analyses revealed declines in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) activation, as well as inverted U-shaped changes in precuneus activation when adolescents donated their time from early to mid adolescence. A less steep decrease in vlPFC activation predicted greater real-life prosocial behaviors in youth's daily lives two years later. Our study elucidates the neurodevelopmental mechanisms of prosocial behavior from early to mid adolescence that have enduring effects on daily prosocial behaviors in late adolescence., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Adolescents' peer world is highly dynamic with constant dissolution of old friendships and formation of new ones. Though many of adolescents' risky decisions involve their peers, little is known about how adolescents' ever-changing friendships shape their ability to make these peer-involving risky decisions, particularly adaptive ones, and whether this association shifts over time. In a 5-wave longitudinal fMRI study, 173 adolescents (at wave 1: M age = 12.8, SD age = 0.52; range = 11.9-14.5) made risky choices to win money for their best friend. We assessed whether participants nominated the same or different best friend as their previous participation year (a total of 340 data points of friendship maintenance / change). In early adolescence, adolescents with the same best friend took more adaptive risks for that best friend than those with a different best friend. In late adolescence, however, adolescents with a different best friend took more adaptive risks for the new best friend than those with the same best friend. Further, the amygdala was differentially sensitive to friendship maintenance / change during these peer-involving adaptive risks across time. This study has implications for how stable and flexible peer landscapes differentially modulate social motivation and social decision-making over the course of adolescence., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Social media behaviors increase during adolescence, and quantifiable feedback metrics (e.g., likes, followers) may amplify the value of social status for teens. Social media's impact on adolescents' daily affect may be exacerbated given the neurodevelopmental changes that increase youths' sensitivity to socio-emotional information. This study examines whether neurobiological sensitivity to popularity moderates daily links between social media use and affect. Adolescents (N = 91, M age =13.6 years, SD age =0.6 years) completed an fMRI task in which they viewed faces of their high (>1 SD above the mean) and low (<1 SD below the mean) popular peers based on peer-nominated sociometric ratings from their school social networks. Two years later, adolescents reported their time spent on social media and affect daily for two weeks. Neural tracking of popularity in the ventromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex moderated the association between time on social media and affect. Specifically, adolescents who tracked high popular peers in the vmPFC reported more positive affect on days when they used social media more. Adolescents who tracked low popular peers in the vmPFC and dmPFC reported more negative affect on days when they used social media more. Results suggest that links between social media and affect depend on individual differences in neural sensitivity to popularity., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Dr. Telzer and Dr. Prinstein reported receiving private research funds from the Winston Family Foundation during the conduct of the study. The Winston Family Foundation had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Habenula (HB) function is implicated in substance use disorders and is involved in inhibiting dopamine release in the ventral striatum (VS). While blunted VS reward responsivity is implicated in risk for later substance use, links between HB reinforcement processing and progression of use have not, to our knowledge, been examined among adolescents. In the present study, we longitudinally assessed HB and VS responsivity to social rewards and punishments across adolescence and examined associations with substance use., Methods: Within a longitudinal design, 170 adolescents (53.5% female) completed 1 to 3 functional magnetic resonance imaging scans across 6th to 9th grade and reported yearly substance use across 6th to 11th grade. We examined VS and HB responsivity to social reinforcement during a social incentive delay task in which adolescents received social rewards (smiling faces) and punishments (scowling faces)., Results: We observed increased VS responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions) and increased VS, but decreased HB, responsivity to social punishment avoidance versus receipt. However, contrary to hypotheses, the HB displayed increased responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions). Further, adolescents reporting regular substance use displayed longitudinally declining HB responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions), whereas adolescents reporting no substance use displayed longitudinally increasing HB responsivity. In contrast, whereas VS responsivity to punishment avoidance versus receipt increased longitudinally among regular substance users, it stayed relatively stable among nonusers., Conclusions: These results suggest that differential HB and VS social reinforcement processing trajectories across adolescence are associated with substance use., (Copyright © 2023 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adolescents are particularly attuned to popularity within peer groups, which impacts behaviors such as risk-taking and prosocial behavior. Neurodevelopmental changes orient adolescents toward salient social cues in their environment. We examined whether neural regions that track popularity are associated with longitudinal changes in risk-taking and prosocial behavior. During an fMRI scan, adolescents (n = 109, M age =13.59, SD=0.59) viewed pictures of their popular and unpopular classmates based on sociometric nominations from their social networks. Neural tracking of high popularity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was associated with increases in risk-taking behavior, whereas tracking of low popularity in the right insula was associated with increases in prosocial behavior. Results suggest that individual differences in neural tracking of popularity relate to longitudinal changes in adolescents' social behaviors., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

"Sickness behavior" is an orchestrated suite of symptoms that commonly occur in the context of inflammation, and is characterized by changes in affect, social experience, and behavior. However, recent evidence suggests that inflammation may not always produce the same set of sickness behavior (e.g., fatigue, anhedonia, and social withdrawal). Rather, inflammation may be linked with different behavior across contexts and/or across individuals, though research in this area is under-developed to-date. In the present study (n = 30), we evaluated the influence of affective context and individual differences in difficulty detecting bodily sensations (i.e., interoceptive difficulty) on social perception following an inflammatory challenge. Inflammation was induced using the influenza vaccine and inflammatory reactivity was operationalized as changes in circulating levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) before the vaccine and approximately 24 h later. Twenty-four hours after administration of the influenza vaccine, we manipulated affective context using a well-validated affect misattribution task in which participants made trustworthiness judgments of individuals with neutral facial expressions following the rapid presentation of "prime" images that were positive or negative in affective content. Interoceptive difficulty was measured at baseline using a validated self-report measure. Results revealed significant interactions between inflammatory reactivity to the influenza vaccine and affective context on social perception. Specifically, individuals with greater inflammatory reactivity were more biased by affective context when judging the trustworthiness of neutral faces. In addition, interoceptive difficulty and affective context interacted to predict social perception such that individuals with greater interoceptive difficulty were more biased by affective context in these judgments. In sum, we provide some of the first evidence that inflammation may amplify the saliency of affective cues during social decision making. Our findings also replicate prior work linking interoceptive ability to the use of affect-as-information during social perception, but in the novel context of inflammation., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Rates of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) increase dramatically in adolescence. Affective reactivity and adverse social experiences have been linked to NSSI, but less is known about whether these factors may separately or interactively predict NSSI, especially longitudinally. This study combined functional magnetic resonance imaging and a sociometric measure to test whether a combination of neural (e.g., amygdala) reactivity to social punishment and peer-nominated peer acceptance/rejection predicts NSSI longitudinally in adolescence. Amygdala reactivity was examined as a potential neural marker of affective reactivity to social punishment, which may heighten NSSI risk in contexts of social adversity., Methods: One hundred twenty-five adolescents (63 female) completed a social incentive delay task during neuroimaging and school-based peer nominations to measure peer acceptance/rejection. NSSI engagement was assessed at baseline and 1-year follow-up., Results: Greater amygdala reactivity to social punishment predicted greater NSSI engagement 1 year later among adolescents with high peer rejection. This effect for the amygdala was specific to social punishment (vs. reward) and held when controlling for biological sex and pubertal development. Exploratory analyses found that ventral striatum reactivity to social reward and punishment similarly interacted with peer rejection to predict NSSI but that amygdala connectivity with salience network regions did not., Conclusions: Amygdala reactivity to social punishment, in combination with high peer rejection, may increase NSSI risk in adolescence, possibly via heightened affective reactivity to adverse social experiences. Objective measures of neurobiological and social risk factors may improve prediction of NSSI, while therapeutic approaches that target affective reactivity and increase prosocial skills may protect against NSSI in adolescence., (Copyright © 2022 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This study examines associations between adolescents' positive risk taking and neural activation during risky decision-making. Participants included 144 adolescents ages 13-16 years (M age = 14.23; SD age = 0.7) from diverse racial and ethnic groups. Participants self-reported their engagement in positive and negative risk taking. Additionally, participants played the Cups task during fMRI, where they chose between a safe choice (guaranteed earning of 15 cents) and a risky choice (varying probabilities of earning more than 15 cents). Using a risk-return framework, we examined adolescents' sensitivity to both risks (safe versus risky) and returns (expected value, or potential reward as a function of its probability of occurring) at the behavioral and neural levels. All participants took more risks when the expected value of the choice was high. However, high positive risk taking was uniquely associated with dampened dmPFC tracking of expected value. Together, results show that adolescents' positive risk taking is associated with neural activity during risky decision-making. Findings are among the first to identify brain-behavior correlations associated with positive risk taking during adolescence., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Adolescents are among the most frequent users of social media and are highly attuned to social feedback. However, digital stress, or subjective distress related to social media demands, expectations, and others' approval and judgment, is understudied in adolescents., Methods: We conducted a preliminary investigation of self-reported digital stress and its hypothesized correlates (social media, peer status, and mental health variables) among 680 students (M age  = 14.27, SD = .62; 49.2% female)., Results: Nearly half of participants reported experiencing digital stress at least "sometimes," regardless of race or ethnicity; sex differences were small. Digital stress was associated with greater social media use and importance, peer importance, popularity, and all mental health variables. Digital stress was also associated longitudinally with increases in depressive symptoms., Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest the importance of further investigation of digital stress and its effects on adolescent health., (Copyright © 2021 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adolescence represents a period of risk for developing patterns of risk-taking and conduct problems, and the quality of the family environment is one robust predictor of such externalizing behavior. However, family factors may not affect all youth uniformly, and individual differences in neurobiological susceptibility to the family context may moderate its influence. The current study investigated brain-based individual differences in social motivational processing as a susceptibility marker to family conflict in predicting externalizing behavior in early adolescent youth. 163 adolescents (M age = 12.87 years) completed an fMRI scan during which they anticipated social rewards and social punishments. For adolescents with heightened ventral striatum and amygdala blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) response during the anticipation of social rewards and heightened ventral striatum BOLD response during the anticipation of social punishments, higher levels of family conflict were associated with greater externalizing behavior. BOLD response when anticipating both social rewards and punishments suggested increased susceptibility to maladaptive family contexts, highlighting the importance of considering adolescent social motivation in positive and negatively valenced contexts., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: An estimated 40% to 70% of individuals treated for a substance use disorder relapse within one year following treatment (Walitzer and Dearing, 2006). Relapse is often driven by the need to cope with intense negative affect (Koob, 2013). Emotion differentiation, defined as the ability to distinguish among various emotion states, has been linked to better behavioral control in the face of negative affect (Kashdan et al., 2015). The aim of the current study was to determine if higher levels of emotion differentiation are associated with the risk of experiencing an initial lapse following entry into residential substance use treatment., Methods: A total of 213 substance users (69.5% male, 94.4% African American, M age=43.01±11.35years) entering residential treatment were assessed on study variables at pre- and post-treatment, and at 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month post-treatment. Emotion differentiation was calculated using ratings on five negative affect items derived from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al., 1988) at five assessment points., Results: A Cox proportional-hazards regression model adjusting for age and negative affect intensity demonstrates that for every unit increase in emotion differentiation, there is a 27% reduction in the likelihood of initial lapse on any given day (OR=0.73; 95% CIs [0.56, 0.95])., Conclusions: The ability to differentiate among negative emotion states protects against initial lapse following treatment., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this manuscript, I briefly outline contemporary psychological constructionist approaches to the study of emotion, which hypothesize that language is an 'ingredient' in the creation of emotional perceptions and experiences. I then review recent neuroimaging, behavioral, and lesion evidence that emotion words ('anger,' 'disgust,' 'fear') are crucial to the perception and experience of emotions. Finally, I look to future directions for more causal evidence that language is important in emotion., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

A conducting media is necessary when using an electric pulp tester (EPT). The objective of this study was to observe differences in conductance through various media. We hypothesized that variations in current conductance through different media exist. The pulp chamber of a freshly extracted premolar was exposed, and the cathode of a voltmeter was inserted into the pulpal tissue. The anode was coupled to the EPT handpiece. The measurement taken during dry (no interface media) EPT tip-to-tooth contact was 0 V, which served as negative control. EPT tip directly touching the cathode measured 3.9V and served as positive control. A number of media readily available in the dental office were tested. Data was analyzed using single factor ANOVA. Listerine (3.3) conducted the most voltage (p<0.5). Of nonliquids, K-Y Brand UltraGel and Crest Baking Soda & Peroxide Whitening Tartar Control toothpaste recorded significantly (p<0.05) higher voltage readings (1.4 V).