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Longitudinal link between trait motivation and risk-taking behaviors via neural risk processing.

ABSTRACT: Prior research has emphasized the importance of the motivational system in risky decision-making, yet the mechanisms through which individual differences in motivation may influence adolescents' risk-taking behaviors remain to be determined. Based on developmental neuroscience literature illustrating the importance of risk processing in explaining individual differences in value-based decision making, we examined risk processing as a potential mediator of the association between trait motivations and adolescents' risk-taking behaviors. The sample consisted of 167 adolescents (47% females) annually assessed for three years (13-14 years of age at Time 1). Approach and avoidance motivations were measured using adolescent self-report. Risk preference was estimated based on adolescents' decisions during a modified economic lottery choice task with neural risk processing being measured by blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses in the bilateral insular cortex for chosen options. Adolescents' risk-taking behaviors were assessed by laboratory-based risky decision making using the Stoplight task. Longitudinal mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of approach motivation, such that higher motivation was correlated with increases in risk-taking behaviors via decreases in neural activation in the bilateral insular cortex during risk processing. The findings illustrate a neural pathway through which approach motivation is translated into the vulnerability to risk taking development.

SUBMITTER: Li M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6939871 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:IntroductionPrevious studies show evidence for associations of prenatal exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides with poorer childhood neurodevelopment. As children grow older, poorer cognition, executive function, and school performance can give rise to risk-taking behaviors, including substance abuse, delinquency, and violent acts. We investigated whether prenatal OP exposure was associated with these risk-taking behaviors in adolescence and young adulthood in a Mexican American cohort.MethodsWe measured urinary dialkyl phosphates (DAPs), non-specific metabolites of OPs, twice (13 and 26 weeks gestation) in pregnant women recruited in 1999-2000 in the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) study, a birth cohort set in a primarily Latino agricultural community in the Salinas Valley, California. We followed up children throughout their childhood and adolescence; at the 18-year visit, adolescent youth (n = 315) completed a computer-based questionnaire which included questions about substance use, risky sexual activity, risky driving, and delinquency and police encounters. We used multivariable models to estimate associations of prenatal total DAPs with these risk-taking behaviors.ResultsThe prevalence of risk-taking behaviors in CHAMACOS youth ranged from 8.9% for smoking or vaping nicotine to 70.2% for committing a delinquent act. Associations of total prenatal DAPs (geometric mean = 132.4 nmol/L) with risk-taking behavior were generally null and imprecise. Isolated findings included a higher risk for smoking or vaping nicotine within the past 30 days (relative risk [RR] per 10-fold increase in prenatal DAPs = 1.89, 95% CI: 1.00, 3.56) and driving without a license (RR = 1.74, 95% CI: 1.25, 2.42). There were no consistent differences by sex or childhood adversity.DiscussionWe did not find clear or consistent evidence for associations of prenatal OP exposure with risk-taking behaviors in adolescence/early adulthood in the CHAMACOS population. Our small sample size may have prevented us from detecting potentially subtle associations of early life OP exposure with these risk-taking behaviors.

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Longitudinal link between trait motivation and risk-taking behaviors via neural risk processing.

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