Schedule of Events | Symposia

Sketchpad Series

Frontostriatal white matter connectivity: longitudinal development through adolescence and associations with reward and executive control processes

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom
Also presenting in Data Blitz Session 2 - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm EDT, Independence Ballroom.

Vanessa Lozano Wun¹ (vlwun@umn.edu), Paul F. Collins¹, Samuel D. Klein¹, Monica Luciana¹; ¹University of Minnesota

Adolescence is marked by significant change, including alterations in neural systems underpinning executive control and reward processes. Structural and functional variations in frontostriatal circuits are implicated in alterations of self-control, reward sensitivity, and sensation-seeking during adolescence. While seminal work in nonhuman primates has established that frontostriatal connections proceed along a ventromedial-dorsolateral gradient, this has only recently been validated in humans. Using resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), work from our lab established that these gradients refine during adolescence, including a) developmental increases in ventral striatum (VS) rsFC with brain areas implicated in reward processing, b) concurrent VS rsFC decreases with areas implicated in executive function (EF), and c) the opposite patterns for dorsal striatum (DS) rsFC. Moreover, more rapid developmental increases in VS rsFC with reward areas were related to improvements in reward-based decision-making, whereas increases in DS rsFC with EF areas were related to improved EF (Klein et al., under review). However, it remains unclear if frontostriatal white matter (WM) connectivity exhibits the same ventromedial-to-dorsolateral gradient. Using data from 153 individuals with 360 total scans acquired across 4 waves and 8 years (ages 11-32 years), probabilistic tractography was performed for ventral (VS to medial orbitofrontal cortex) and dorsal (DS to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) frontostriatal WM tracts. The longitudinal developmental trajectories of WM microstructure and associations with reward sensitivity (self-reported via the Behavioral Activation System Scales) and EF (composite index of Digit Span, CANTAB Spatial Working Memory, Tower of London, and spatial delayed response performance) will be assessed using hierarchical linear modeling.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging