Young adolescents would react differently to rewards and pleasant experiences than to losses and penalties depending on the time of day. This is revealed by a study conducted by two researchers from the University of Binghamton, in the United States.
-1584711568.jpg "Why teens are likely to engage in risky behaviors in the evening")
- The reward circuit works differently depending on the time of day
- This reactivity to the reward in the evening encourages risky behavior
Can adolescent behavior vary by time of day? Two researchers from Binghamton University (State of New York) asked themselves this question in the study titled Differences in neural reactivity to reward in children by time of daypublished in the scientific journal Psychophysiology.
“As children enter adolescence, they begin to be more reward-seeking/satisfying experiences and less responsive to loss/punishment, says Aliona Tsypes, a graduate student in psychology at Binghamton University, in a article published on the institution’s website. How a person responds to rewards depends on the time of day, due to circadian rhythms.”
Electroencephalography to study neuronal responses
Along with psychology professor Brandon E. Gibb, Aliona Tsypes conducted her work on 188 healthy children, ages 7 to 11. The two researchers asked their subjects to perform a computer test. Seeing two doors on the screen, young teenagers had to guess which one was behind the money.
Each time they answered correctly, they won 50 cents. On the other hand, as soon as they made a mistake, they lost 25 cents. During this ordeal, Brandon E. Gibb and Aliona Tsypes used electroencephalography to study children’s neural responses to losses and wins.
“A higher tendency to make bad decisions in the evening”
Thus, the researchers found that older children showed stronger neural responses to rewards and pleasant experiences than to losses and penalties after around 5:15 p.m. Younger children adopted the opposite pattern.
“Stronger reward reactivity in young adolescents later in the day may contribute to a higher tendency to make poor decisions in the evening, such as choosing to engage in dangerous behaviorsbelieves Brandon E. Gibb. This could help explain why adolescence is a period that presents the increased risk of developing psychopathology as well as drug problems.”
Further research to study self-destructive thoughts and behaviors
The researchers do not intend to stop there. Aliona Tsypes continues her work on reward-related processes, especially in relation to suicide and self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. She also hopes to better understand the influence of circadian rhythms on reward.
“It is important to emphasize that these time-of-day effects are not strictly circadian.says Aliona Ttypes. Future research should also examine other relevant factors to better distinguish reward-related from cyclical processes that are found in the human nervous system.”
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