br Are there unique learning opportunities

Are there unique learning opportunities during adolescence? Alongside the relatively bleak picture of a period where preexisting vulnerabilities find expression, it may also be the case that the adolescent-typical neurodevelopmental changes we have described enhance plasticity to positive environmental experiences (see Fig. 1). These experiences may often center around positive peer interactions and academic achievements, but could also include early interventions. Indeed, research on normative changes suggests that adolescence is a period of opportunity. Recent conceptual frameworks view the adolescence-associated increase in ‘emotionality’ and ‘sociality’ as facilitating learning for specific, relevant (social-emotional) experiences. Protracted maturation of neurocognitive abilities may enable individuals to be more flexible in their behavioral responses and adapt rapidly to changing social contextual demands (e.g., Crone and Dahl, 2012; Nelson et al., 2014). Following this line of thought, it has been suggested that interventions implemented at developmentally-sensitive junctures may yield more powerful and sustained therapeutic benefits (Cohen Kadosh et al., 2013). This may be particularly so for interventions which target neurocognitive processes that are undergoing maturational change in adolescence. Thus, the benefits of early treatment may not simply be limited to a timely amelioration of symptoms to avoid long-term negative outcomes. Instead, administering interventions early may take advantage of developmentally sensitive plasticity and learning. Here, we first consider how neurodevelopmental changes may enhance learning and plasticity, and next, which interventions may be most appropriate. Across adolescence, changes in Fostriecin sodium salt networks may result in: (i) greater affective responding to (socially) threatening and rewarding feedback and (ii) a greater engagement with, and understanding of, complex interpersonal situations. These changes may focus learning on ‘developmentally-appropriate’ cues such as peer feedback when seeking out new group membership. Differential reactivity both in amygdalae and striatal function, which have been shown to support basic learning processes of threat and reward (Cohen et al., 2010; Gallagher and Hollandt, 1994), may also guide and enhance emotional learning in adolescence. Protracted maturation of individual regions and connectivity of prefrontal-limbic-temporal networks may allow for these abilities to emerge gradually across adolescence. But is there evidence that (social and non-social) emotional learning is enhanced in adolescence? Learning from (both positive and negative) feedback in changing environments appears to develop until early adulthood. Behavioral data from several experiments suggests that youngsters are more influenced by irrelevant negative feedback, experience more arousal in response to anticipated loss, and exhibit an increased learning rate from events that are worse than expected compared to adults (Crone and van der Molen, 2007; Hauser et al., 2015; Hooper et al., 2004). A few imaging studies have revealed increasing engagement of dorsolateral PFC and parietal cortex to negative feedback with age (Van Duijvenvoorde et al., 2008; Crone et al., 2008). Two more recent studies have assessed neuro-developmental differences in more complex, probabilistic learning environments, by looking at the neural underpinnings of prediction error in development. In brief, prediction error refers to the difference between expected and actual/experienced (positive or negative) outcome. A study by Cohen and colleagues (2010) found that a neural representation of prediction error in the ventral striatum only emerged in the mid- to late-adolescent group, with heightened sensitivity to positive predictions errors in adolescence. Van den Bos and colleagues (2012) further found that ventral striatum-mPFC connectivity during prediction error learning changed from stronger connectivity after negative feedback to stronger connectivity after positive feedback (though they did not find striatal differences per se in response to prediction errors). A further cross-sectional study by Jones and colleagues (2014) probed neural responses during positive social reinforcement learning. The authors reported that teenagers, in comparison to both children and adults, exhibited greater insular activity during positive prediction error learning. Together, these studies suggest that adaptive developmental learning during this period is aided by a unique reactivity/receptiveness to certain (social and non-social) learning signals and changing mechanisms by which these signals guide and inform behavior.