Being praised and criticized in adolescents and adults: Age-related changes in neural responses to social evaluations

Adolescence is a developmental period marked by heightened sensitivity to social evaluation due to the ongoing maturation of brain regions involved in emotion regulation and social cognition. Adolescents may be more vulnerable to socially evaluative feedback, particularly criticism, than adults. Although previous studies have documented age-related differences in neural responses to social evaluation, it remains unclear how the dynamic interactions among brain regions differ between these two age groups during social evaluation. In this study, sixty-four adolescents (14–17 years) and fifty-nine adults (20–40 years) were exposed to criticism, praise, and neutral comments during fMRI scanning. Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) was used to examine functional interactions among key brain regions involved in social evaluation: the right pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and left precuneus. Compared to adults, adolescents were more sensitive to criticism as they reported higher perceived criticism and more task-induced mood disturbance following criticism. DCM results showed that adolescents had stronger excitatory DLPFC-to-pgACC connectivity, and weaker excitatory pgACC-to-DLPFC and DLPFC-to-precuneus connectivity during social evaluation in general, compared to adults. Moreover, when being criticized, adolescents showed less excitation of the DLPFC-to-pgACC connectivity, whereas when being praised, they showed less inhibition of the pgACC-to-DLPFC connectivity. These findings highlight age-related differences in the neural dynamics underlying social evaluation processing, providing insight into adolescents’ heightened sensitivity to social evaluation and potential risk for developing affective disorders. • Adolescents are more sensitive to criticism and showed greater mood disturbance induced by social evaluation. • fMRI reveals age-related differences in brain activation when processing social evaluative feedback. • Adolescents exhibit altered effective connectivity among pgACC, DLPFC, and precuneus. • The connectivity between pgACC and DLPFC were modulated by praise and criticism differently in adolescents compared to adults.