Protracted prediction: Neurodevelopment of reward processing in the adolescent cerebellum.
- 1The University of New Mexico
Abstract
Adolescence is characterized by heightened reward sensitivity and risky decision-making. Prevailing neurodevelopmental frameworks attribute these behavioral trends to a maturational imbalance between rapidly developing motivational brain regions, and slower-maturing prefrontal cognitive control circuitry. However, these models overlook the cerebellum-a structure that demonstrates protracted development across adolescence and reciprocal connectivity with both striatum and prefrontal cortex. Here, we conducted a systematic literature search and activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies examining reward anticipation and feedback processing in healthy adolescents (19 studies; 55 cerebellar peaks). In adults, a recent ALE analysis found a diffuse set of cognitive and affective cerebellar regions is recruited during reward anticipation, while feedback-locked activation is circumscribed and mostly restricted to the Vermis (Kruithof et al., 2023). In adolescents, we found evidence for a reward phase-specific spatial dissociation relative to adults. In adolescents, reward anticipation-locked activity is restricted to regions of the Vermis that are functionally connected to occipital and salience networks. Conversely, feedback processing elicits diffuse activation across bilateral Crus I/II regions that are connected to frontoparietal, default-mode, and limbic networks. These results suggest a proactive engagement of cortico-cerebellar networks during reward anticipation in adults, and a reactive recruitment of cortico-cerebellar networks post-feedback in adolescents. Adolescents may have less mature internal models for optimizing decision-making, and as a result they may require more widespread recruitment of cortico-cerebellar cognitive and affective circuitry post-feedback. Prevailing maturational imbalance models of youth decision-making should be expanded to incorporate developmental changes in cerebellar reward processing.
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BibTeX
@misc{mullins2026protracted,
title = {{Protracted prediction: Neurodevelopment of reward processing in the adolescent cerebellum.}},
author = {T. S. Mullins and J. Hogeveen},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.64898/2026.05.27.726906},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.27.726906v2},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Protracted prediction: Neurodevelopment of reward processing in the adolescent cerebellum.
AU - T. S. Mullins
AU - J. Hogeveen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/27
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.05.27.726906
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.27.726906v2
AB - Adolescence is characterized by heightened reward sensitivity and risky decision-making. Prevailing neurodevelopmental frameworks attribute these behavioral trends to a maturational imbalance between rapidly developing motivational brain regions, and slower-maturing prefrontal cognitive control circuitry. However, these models overlook the cerebellum-a structure that demonstrates protracted development across adolescence and reciprocal connectivity with both striatum and prefrontal cortex. Here, we conducted a systematic literature search and activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies examining reward anticipation and feedback processing in healthy adolescents (19 studies; 55 cerebellar peaks). In adults, a recent ALE analysis found a diffuse set of cognitive and affective cerebellar regions is recruited during reward anticipation, while feedback-locked activation is circumscribed and mostly restricted to the Vermis (Kruithof et al., 2023). In adolescents, we found evidence for a reward phase-specific spatial dissociation relative to adults. In adolescents, reward anticipation-locked activity is restricted to regions of the Vermis that are functionally connected to occipital and salience networks. Conversely, feedback processing elicits diffuse activation across bilateral Crus I/II regions that are connected to frontoparietal, default-mode, and limbic networks. These results suggest a proactive engagement of cortico-cerebellar networks during reward anticipation in adults, and a reactive recruitment of cortico-cerebellar networks post-feedback in adolescents. Adolescents may have less mature internal models for optimizing decision-making, and as a result they may require more widespread recruitment of cortico-cerebellar cognitive and affective circuitry post-feedback. Prevailing maturational imbalance models of youth decision-making should be expanded to incorporate developmental changes in cerebellar reward processing.
ER -