Neural signatures of promotion and prevention goal activation in adolescence

Adolescence is marked by major changes in self-regulation, goal pursuit, and brain function. Regulatory focus theory (RFT) distinguishes between promotion and prevention self-regulatory systems, activated by ideal and ought goals, respectively. These systems have been studied in adults using fMRI; however, adolescent-specific patterns of activation are not yet well understood. In a normative adult sample, observed shared and unique regions of activation associated with idiographically assessed promotion vs. prevention priming, as well as variations in BOLD response depending on whether participants believed they were or were not making progress attaining the goal. In the present developmental extension, we examined whether adolescents exhibited neural activation patterns in response to ideal and ought priming consistent with adult findings. We measured brain activation during goal priming in 47 healthy adolescents (ages 13-17). Analyses revealed a linear increase in BOLD response to personally meaningful (vs. yoked control) goal-related adjectives across repeated priming blocks in regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus - regions associated with self-referential processing and regulatory focus. These results suggest that adolescents recruit neural circuits associated with self-relevant cognition in response to promotion and prevention goals.