The Amplitude And Latency Of Feedback-related Negativity:Aging And Gender Difference

Background:people monitor their own behaviors, determine which choice is appropriate, and adjust their behaviors, by means of internal and external feedback. Effective decision making depends on effective feedback evaluation and adaptive behavior. Many subsequent studies revealed that research of the FRN (feedback related negativity) provides an electrophysiological level window into the feedback evaluation processing. Furthermore, many source localization studies have suggested that one generator for the FRN is close to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).Adolescents are more prone to risk taking, novelty seeking, and sensation seeking like marijuana use. Some of the most threatening risks that people take-drunk driving, binge drinking, smoking, having unprotected sex, unintentional injuries, violence, impulsivity-are especially common during adolescence. In recent years, some researchers reported those immature or abnormal decision making is related to abnormalities of FRN. That is to say, adolescents may immature in feedback evaluation processing and corresponding FRN.Methods:Base on the previous studies, we using event-related potential technique to figure out the different between (mid and late) adolescent and adults in am and latency of FRN, during single outcome gambling (SOG) task. The participants are all recruited from university and high school of Changsha. Twenty-eight healthy, right-handed adults (14females) and forty healthy, right-handed adolescents (20females) participated in this experiment.Results:A mixed-model ANOVA was used to analyses the amplitude of FRN. A main effect for gender [F(1,64)=5.092, p=0.027], There is no age significant difference [F(1,64)=0.005, p=0.946]. There is no significant interaction between age and gender[F(1,64)=1.103, p=0.298]. A mixed-model ANOVA was used to analyses the latency of FRN, the main effect of age [F(1,64)=32.787, p<0.000].Conclusions:We found adults are more sensitive to magnitude of feedback, instead of valence, but middle and late adolescents are sensitive to neither magnitude nor valence. These results suggest that possibly maturational effects were accountable for the difference of middle and late adolescents and adults. Based on the result that males were elicited a significantly more negativity amplitude in the FRN than females, males may require more neural activity to achieve similar feedback evaluation process as females. On the basis of FRN difference in age and gender, there are differences of electrophysiological mechanism of evaluation process in age and gender. So, in the future FRN study, researchers should consider interference from age and gender.