Barkley Levenson WOOF Flashcards
Barkley Levenson aim
To investigate the influence of brain development on risk taking behaviour
To see if there are biological and behavioural differences between adults and adolescents when gambling
Barkley Levenson ppts
19 right handed adults, 25-30. 11 female 8 male.
22 right-handed 13-17 year olds, 11 of each gender.
Obtained consent from p’s or their parents. No previous diagnosis of mental or neurological illness. No metal in body.
Ended with a final sample of 17 adults and 20 adolescents.
Barkley Levenson method
P’s asked about income, source of income and spending money.
Familiarised with the MRI scanner by using a mock version.
Given 20$ for taking part abs were told they would be able to gamble and win another 20$ or lose it all.
Went home for a week so the money felt like their own.
P’s had to complete a gambling task while undergoing an fMRI. During the scan they were shown a “spinner”, this told them how much could be gained or lost on that gamble. They had 144 spinner trials each, 24 win/win and 24 lose/lose.
Barkley Levenson results
The higher the expected value of the win, the more likely adolescents were to accept the gamble than adults.
Adolescents behaved similarly to adults when there was no risk involved (e.g. gain only trial) and neither accepted a negative expected value (more to lose, less to win)
Adolescents had more activity in their ventral striatum (reward centre) when the potential reward was high compared to adults.
Adolescents had less activity in their amygdala (responsible for fear).
Barkley Levenson conclusions
The adolescent brain places greater value on potential rewards (more activation in vs)
Suggests there are maturational changes in the vs as we get older
Adolescent brain is more focussed on winning a large amount than losing a small amount
Heightened sensitivity to reward during adolescence
BACKGROUND: Eshel
Eshel et al 2007 found that there was more brain activity in the frontal cortex in adults compared to adolescents when they made a riskier financial choice. This shows that, the prefrontal cortex was not fully developed in teenagers and therefore, they would not be able to rely on the brain to control their choices.
BACKGROUND: Casey
Ventral striatum showed exaggerated recruitment for low-delayers
