Conflict between Threat Sensitivity and Sensation Seeking in the Adolescent Brain : Role of the Hippocampus, and Neurobehavioural Plasticity Induced by Pleasurable Early Enriched Experience
Fernández-Teruel, Alberto (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Psiquiatria i de Medicina Legal)

Date:	2021
Abstract:	Adolescence is characterized both by the exacerbation of the experience of anxiety, fear or threat, on one hand, and by increased reward seeking (reward sensitivity) and risk taking on the other hand. The rise of these apparently opposite processes, i. e. , threat-related anxiety and reward-related sensation seeking, seems to stem from a relatively decreased top-down inhibition of amygdala and striatal circuits by regulatory systems (e. g. , prefrontal cortex, hippocampus) that mature later. The present commentary article aims to discuss recent related literature and focusses on two main issues: (i) the septo-hippocampal system (in particular the ventral hippocampus) might be a crucial region for the regulation of approach-avoidance conflict and also for the selection of the most appropriate responses during adolescence, and (ii) developmental studies involving early-life pleasurable-enriched experience (as opposed to early-life adversity) might be a useful study paradigm in order to decipher whether neuroplasticity induced by such experiences (for example, in the hippocampus and associated circuitry) may lead to better top-down inhibition and more "balanced" adolescent responses to environmental demands.
Grants:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PSI2017-82257-P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-1586
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Adolescent brain ; Anxiety ; Sensation seeking ; Approach-avoidance conflict ; Hippocampus ; Prefrontal cortex ; Amygdala ; Nucleus accumbens ; Early-life pleasurable experience
Published in:	Brain sciences, Vol. 11 (february 2021) , ISSN 2076-3425

DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11020268
PMID: 33672653

13 p, 993.9 KB

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