Distentangling the systems contributing to changes in learning during adolescence.

ABSTRACT: Multiple neurocognitive systems contribute simultaneously to learning. For example, dopamine and basal ganglia (BG) systems are thought to support reinforcement learning (RL) by incrementally updating the value of choices, while the prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes different computations, such as actively maintaining precise information in working memory (WM). It is commonly thought that WM and PFC show more protracted development than RL and BG systems, yet their contributions are rarely assessed in tandem. Here, we used a simple learning task to test how RL and WM contribute to changes in learning across adolescence. We tested 187 subjects ages 8 to 17 and 53 adults (25-30). Participants learned stimulus-action associations from feedback; the learning load was varied to be within or e

SUBMITTER: Master SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6994540 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature