ES EN
Vol. 21. Núm. 2. - 2015. Páginas 125-131

Social cognition in adolescence: Social rejection and theory of mind

[La cognición social en la adolescencia: el rechazo social y la teoría de la mente]

Catherine L. Sebastian1


1Univ. London, Royal Holloway, Reino Unido


https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pse.2015.08.004

Abstract

Neuroimaging studies have shown continued structural and functional development in neural circuitry underlying social and emotional behaviour during adolescence. This article explores adolescent neurocognitive development in two domains: sensitivity to social rejection and Theory of Mind (ToM).Adolescents often report hypersensitivity to social rejection. The studies presented here suggest that this is accompanied by reduced responses in brain regions involved in emotion regulation. Studies on social rejection in adolescents with autism spectrum conditions will also be discussed. ToM is another social cognitive domain which undergoes neurocognitive development between adolescence and adulthood. ToM refers to the ability to understand others' thoughts and intentions. Neuroimaging data suggest that the ability to integrate emotional information into ToM decisions continues to develop between adolescence and adulthood. In sum, these studies demonstrate ongoing development of social and emotional cognition during adolescence at both behavioural and neural levels, providing a neurocognitive framework for understanding adolescent behaviour. 

 

Resumen

Los estudios de neuroimagen han conocido un continuo desarrollo estructural y funcional de los circuitos neuronales que subyacen al comportamiento social y emocional en la adolescencia. Este artículo explora el desarrollo neurocognitivo adolescente en dos dominios: la sensibilidad al rechazo social y la teoría de la mente (TM). Los adolescentes refieren a menudo hipersensibilidad al rechazo social. Los estudios que se presentan sugieren que se acompaña de una disminución de las respuestas en regiones cerebrales vinculadas a la regulación emocional. También se comentarán los estudios sobre rechazo social en adolescentes con trastornos del espectro autista. La teoría de la mente es otro campo cognitivo social que subyace al desarrollo neurocognitivo entre adolescencia y edad adulta. Dicha teoría alude a la capacidad de comprender los pensamientos e intenciones de los demás. Los datos de neuroimagen sugieren que la capacidad de integrar la información emocional en decisiones de teoría de la mente sigue desarrollándose entre la adolescencia y la edad adulta. En síntesis, tales estudios demuestran que hay un desarrollo continuo de la cognición social y emocional durante la adolescencia tanto en el nivel comportamental como neuronal, proporcionando un marco neurocognitivo para explicar el comportamiento adolescente. 

 

Human adolescence is a period of physical, psychological, and social transition between childhood and adulthood ( Spear, 2000 ). While it is difficult to define the precise onset and end point of adolescence, it has been described as ning with the onset of puberty and ending with a stable commitment to an adult role ( Damon, 2004 ). For the purposes of this article, adolescence will be broadly defined as the second decade of life. While there are undoubtedly cultural influences at play, adolescence is often characterised by an increase in emotional lability and risk-taking behaviours. Epidemiological data also suggest that adolescence is a key time for the onset of psychological disorders characterised by emotional dysregulation ( Kessler et al., 2005 ). These internalising disorders such as depression and anxiety, as well as externalising disorders such as conduct disorder.

It has been suggested that this vulnerability results from ongoing brain development occurring during adolescence, particularly in brain regions responsible for high level cognitive abilities such as planning, decision-making, and regulating emotions (e.g., Paus, Keshavan, & Giedd, 2008 ). In the last 15 years, the availability of safe and non-invasive neuroimaging methods such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revolutionised the study of adolescence. It is now known that significant development occurs in the brain's grey and white matter and that those brain regions which are latest to mature are those responsible for complex human behaviours, notably the prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal regions ( Giedd et al., 1999; Gogtay et al., 2004; Shaw et al., 2008; Sowell et al., 1999 ). Different brain regions have also been shown to mature at different rates and with differing trajectories; for example, Shaw et al. (2008) found that evolutionarily older parts of the brain, such as the limbic system, mature in a simpler linear trajectory than regions that evolved more recently, such as the neocortex. Neurotransmitter systems also continue to develop; for example the dopaminergic system undergoes substantial remodelling during adolescence ( Steinberg, 2008).

Research is currently engaged in further linking specific adolescent behaviours with particular patterns of brain development. Several recent models of the link between adolescent brain and behaviour have proposed the idea of a ‘developmental mismatch’ between parts of the brain involved in processing emotional and reward signals (including regions such as the amygdala and ventral striatum) and those responsible for regulating these responses (e.g., parts of the prefrontal cortex) ( Casey, Jones, & Hare, 2008; Nelson, Leibenluft, McClure, & Pine, 2005; Steinberg, 2008 ). During adolescence, it is hypothesised that the development of regulatory regions lags behind that of emotional processing regions, rendering the adolescent brain a ‘fast car with poor brakes’. Although this formulation is undoubtedly oversimplified, it provides a useful framework and generates predictions that can be tested using methods such as al magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

In addition to emotional processing, regulation, and behaviour, it is also important to consider the role of social development in adolescence. Indeed, the social environment is crucial in shaping the adolescent brain ( Blakemore, 2008 ). The role of peers is vital, with evidence suggesting that by mid-adolescence, individuals spend more time with their peers than with their parents ( Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986 ). Also important is the increasing ability of adolescents to think abstractly about themselves and other people. This means they have a more sophisticated understanding of complex social phenomena such as reputation, social hierarchy, personality traits, and how others see them (the ‘looking glass self’) than they did at an earlier age ( Harter, 1990; Parker, Rubin, Erath, Wojslawowicz, & Buskirk, 2006; Sebastian, Burnett, & Blakemore, 2008 ).

Social Rejection in Adolescence

Given this ongoing development in both affective (emotional) and social domains, several researchers have investigated whether ‘developmental mismatch’, resulting in poor emotion regulation, could interact with social cognitive development to account for social behaviours commonly seen in adolescence. One phenomenon that captures the overlap between social and emotional processes particularly well is sensitivity to social rejection in adolescence. Social rejection, or ostracism, refers to being deliberately ignored or excluded by an individual or a group ( Williams, 2007 ). In adolescence, social rejection is often used as a form of relational aggression or bullying, with one study ( Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009 ), reporting that 27.4% adolescent girls had been excluded or ignored by peers at school. Boys may also use relational aggression but girls are more likely to do so, and to be upset when they are the victim ( Crick & Nelson, 2002; Wang et al., 2009 ). Self-report studies have suggested that adolescents might be more sensitive to social rejection than both adults and younger children in everyday life ( Kloep, 1999; O’Brien & Bierman, 1988 ). However, the social, cognitive, and neural processes underlying this effect have only recently been investigated experimentally.

As a starting point, it is important to establish whether adolescent sensitivity to social rejection can be replicated in the laboratory. If so, this would suggest that the phenomenon is not just an artefact of the adolescent social environment (e.g., social hierarchies at school). In recent years, the ‘Cyberball’ paradigm ( Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000 ) has been used extensively to experimentally investigate responses to social rejection in a wide range of populations. Cyberball is a computer game in which participants are told that they are playing a game of ‘catch’ over the internet with two other players, and that the researchers are interested in ‘mental visualisation ability’ during the game. In fact, the actions of the other players are pre-programmed by the experimenter to either or exclude the participant in a systematic way. Reactions to this manipulation can then be measured (see Williams, 2007, for a review).

Cyberball was used to test adolescent responses to social rejection (focusing on females only) in a study by Sebastian, Viding, Williams, and Blakemore (2010) . Twenty-six early adolescents (aged 11-13), 25 mid adolescents (aged 14-15), and 26 adult female controls were first d and then rejected in successive rounds of Cyberball. Self-reported mood and anxiety levels were measured at baseline (i.e., before playing Cyberball), after inclusion, and finally after rejection. (Condition order was not randomised in order to avoid possible negative spillover effects from the rejection to the inclusion condition). Relative to adult females, both adolescent groups reported lower overall mood following rejection. The early adolescents also reported greater anxiety. The mid-adolescents did report high anxiety following rejection, but anxiety was also high following inclusion (relative to baseline). One possible conclusion from this finding is that social interaction in general can be anxiety-provoking at this age. Indeed, the mean age of onset for social phobia occurs in mid-adolescence at age 15 ( Mancini, Van Ameringen, Bennett, Patterson, & Watson, 2005 ). In contrast, all groups reported that they had been excluded by the other players to a similar degree and reported the experience as feeling equally real. This suggests that adolescents (at least adolescent girls) respond more strongly and negatively to social rejection than do adults, even when there are no objective differences in the perception of the rejection episode.

Social Rejection and the Adolescent Brain

The behavioural study reported above suggests that sensitivity to rejection in adolescence can be elicited under experimental conditions, even when the rejection encounter is very brief and has no long term consequences for social reputation. It is therefore interesting to consider what factors might underlie this effect. One hypothesis is that ongoing brain development in regions responsible for processing and regulating responses to social rejection may contribute. Eisenberger, Lieberman, and Williams (2003) used the Cyberball paradigm together with fMRI in adults and found that activity in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) during social rejection (relative to inclusion) was negatively related to self-reported distress, i.e., a greater response in this region was associated with reduced rejection-related distress. One possibility is that this region is involved in regulating negative emotions such as responses to social rejection, and that this region s differently in adolescents compared with adults.

This hypothesis was investigated in an fMRI study comparing neural responses during Cyberball in 19 adolescent females (aged 14-16) and 16 matched adults ( Sebastian et al., 2011 ). Regardless of age, all participants activated a network of regions involved in social evaluation and negative emotion. These d the medial prefrontal cortex, ventral anterior cingulate cortex, and medial orbitofrontal cortex. However, of most interest was a group difference in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. The adult group showed a greater response in this region during rejection compared with inclusion, while the adolescent group showed no difference between rejection and inclusion conditions. It may be that this lack of a difference between conditions reflects a reduced ability to flexibly engage right VLPFC in emotion regulation as needed (in this case, during social rejection).

In support of this interpretation, adolescents reported greater rejection-related distress than did adults (as in the behavioural study above), although it is worth noting that no inverse correlation was found between distress and right VLPFC response in either adolescents or adults. Such a result would have provided stronger evidence that right VLPFC response was ally involved in regulating rejection-related distress. However, another study ( Masten et al., 2009 ) used Cyberball and fMRI with 23 adolescents (both males and females) and did find a negative correlation between distress and right VLPFC activation. The replication of this effect across two studies ( Eisenberger et al., 2003; Masten et al., 2009 ) lends weight to the theory that this region is involved in regulating distress and that its lack of engagement in Sebastian et al. (2011) reflects reduced regulation of rejection-related distress in adolescents relative to adults.

Results from the above studies indicate that adolescents respond to explicit social rejection differently from adults at both the behavioural and the neural levels. Although participants are not aware that the experimental aim is to measure responses to social rejection during Cyberball, they are at least explicitly aware that they are engaged in a social interaction, and that at some points they are d and at others excluded. However, an important aspect of emotion regulation relates to how we respond to implicit emotional cues, and in particular how well executive s such as cognitive control, response inhibition, attention, working memory, conflict monitoring and decision-making can be maintained in the presence of implicit emotional information ( Tottenham, Hare, & Casey, 2011 ).

To investigate this in relation to rejection in adolescence, adolescent and adult participants were scanned while completing a rejection-related emotional Stroop task ( Sebastian, Roiser et al., 2010 ). Individual words were displayed on the computer screen and participants indicated the ink colour in which the word was written (red, blue, green, yellow). Word meanings were either rejection-related (e.g., ‘loser’), acceptance-related (‘friend’), or neutral (e.g., ‘table’). Participants were instructed to concentrate on the task (indicating the word colour) rather than word meaning; however, an extensive literature on the emotional Stroop task shows that emotional word meanings interfere with participants ability to perform the task, resulting in both increased reaction times to emotional (and particularly negatively-valenced) words ( Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996 ) and increased neural responses in regions involved in cognitive control ( Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000 ). Interestingly, a comparison of fMRI responses during the emotional Stroop task between adolescent and adult responses revealed a group difference in the same right VLPFC region identified in the study using Cyberball. The pattern of results was also similar: adults showed an increased response in this region when processing rejection-related words compared with neutral words, but adolescents showed no difference between the two conditions.

Overall, results across two tasks (one explicit, one implicit) suggest that ventrolateral prefrontal cortex may not regulate emotional responses associated with social rejection as effectively in adolescents as in adults. It is possible that reduced response in this region may contribute to adolescent sensitivity to social rejection seen in everyday life. However, the exact mechanism underlying this reduced response is still unclear. For example, does this finding relate to the idea of a developmental mismatch, with an immature ventrolateral prefrontal cortex unable to regulate the activity of the limbic system effectively? We know that a network of brain regions is involved in the generation and regulation of rejection-related distress: how do these regions connect with each other and interact and how does this network develop during adolescence? It is also important to consider the role of experience: perhaps group differences at the neural level reflect adults’ greater experience in dealing with rejection over time. While there are unanswered questions, the data suggests that focusing on emotion regulation skills, particularly those that engage ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, may be particularly beneficial during adolescence.

Social Rejection in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Conditions

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) refer to conditions characterised by a triad of impairments comprising language difficulties or delay, communication problems, and stereotyped behaviours. While high-ing individuals with ASC have cognitive abilities in the normal range, their difficulties with social interaction may leave them particularly vulnerable to experiencing social rejection, particularly during adolescence when their peers’ social skills may accelerate ahead. There is evidence that adolescents with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) believe they are less popular than their typically developing peers, while recognising the importance of peer approval ( Williamson, Craig, & Slinger, 2008 ). Individuals with ASC also report a desire for friendship ( Frith, 2004 ), while often experiencing loneliness ( Bauminger & Kasari, 2000) and bullying ( Van Roekel, Scholte, & Didden, 2010 ). It is therefore of interest to explore how individuals with ASC experience social rejection.

We conducted a behavioural study, using Cyberball to investigate self-reported responses to rejection in 13 adolescents with ASC (mean age 16.9) and 13 matched controls ( Sebastian, Blakemore, & Charman, 2009 ). Overall, the two groups reported very similar levels of distress. According to Williams’ (1997) Need Threat model, social rejection threatens four fundamental social needs: self-esteem, belonging, control, and a sense of meaningful existence. These needs can be threatened automatically; for example, Zadro, Williams, and Richardson (2004) showed that rejection causes distress even when participants know that the Cyberball game is controlled by a computer. Adolescents with ASC reported similar or greater levels of need threat across all four needs compared with controls. Anxiety levels were also similar between the two groups. The only difference between groups was seen for self-reported mood: after rejection, the control group showed significantly lowered mood compared with baseline and inclusion conditions, while the group with ASC showed no reduction in mood.

This result was followed up by three studies using neuroimaging methods (fMRI or EEG) to better understand the response to rejection in ASC ( Bolling et al., 2011; Masten et al., 2011; McPartland et al., 2011 ). These studies all found that self-reported (questionnaire) responses to rejection were largely preserved in ASC, as discussed above. However, neural responses to rejection were reduced in individuals with ASC compared with controls (see Sebastian et al., 2011 for a detailed discussion of these studies). This is interesting, as it suggests that it is erroneous to think of responses to rejection in ASC as being either fully preserved or deficient. Adolescents with ASC clearly subjectively perceive social rejection as distressing, despite differences in processing at the neural level. Since individuals with ASC are particularly likely to experience bullying and social rejection, it makes sense to focus on bullying prevention in this group as well as on helping these individuals to develop effective coping strategies.

The Adolescent Brain and Theory of Mind

The studies discussed so far have used social rejection as a tool for investigating the development of social and emotional processing in adolescence. Another aspect of social cognition that has received considerable attention with regard to adolescence in recent years is Theory of Mind (ToM: understanding others’ thoughts, beliefs, and intentions). Indeed, while until recently ToM was thought to develop around age 4, evidence now suggests that ToM improves into late adolescence. For example, a behavioural study by Dumontheil, Apperly, and Blakemore (2009) found improvements in the ability to take another person's perspective between late adolescence (14-17 years) and adulthood (see Dumontheil, this volume, for further details).

Neuroimaging evidence is now showing that improvements in social cognition during adolescence are underpinned by ongoing development in relevant brain regions. For example, four recent al magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using a range of social cognition tasks have shown a reduction in brain activity between adolescence and adulthood in medial prefrontal cortex (see review by Blakemore, 2008 ). This region is activated across a range of social cognition tasks, particularly those requiring ToM. Putative s of this region meta-representation ( Amodio & Frith, 2006; Frith & Frith, 2007 ) or the decoupling of mental states from reality ( Gallagher & Frith, 2003 ), processes that are both necessary for ToM computations such as false belief reasoning, which s understanding that others’ mental states may differ from reality. At present it is unclear what processes underlie the reduction in mPFC response between adolescence and adulthood. It may be that ongoing anatomical development during adolescence contributes to changes in al activation between adolescence and adulthood. Another possibility is that reduced activation relates to increasing efficiency in cognitive strategies used between adolescence and adulthood. These potential explanations are not mutually exclusive, and there may well be a combination of factors contributing to the pattern of results seen. In sum, the findings are suggestive of ongoing development in the neural underpinnings of ToM in adolescence.

While the traditional definition of ToM involves understanding thoughts, beliefs, and intentions, some researchers have suggested that understanding feelings should also be d (e.g., Shamay-Tsoory, Tomer, Berger, Goldsher, & Aharon-Peretz, 2005 ). One recent model ( Shamay-Tsoory, Harari, Aharon-Peretz, & Levkovitz, 2010 ) distinguishes cognitive and affective subprocesses of ToM. Cognitive ToM encompasses ‘classic’ ToM, defined above, while affective ToM refers to the ability to infer what a person is feeling. According to this model, affective ToM s the integration of cognitive ToM and empathy (i.e., the ability to share and understand the emotional states of others; Singer, Critchley, & Preuschoff, 2009 ). As such, it is a more complex cognitive process than cognitive ToM. There is some evidence for this idea. For example, while children can pass complex cognitive ToM tasks (e.g., understanding what person A understands about what person B thinks) from the age of 6 or 7 years ( Perner & Wimmer, 1985 ), the ability to represent what person A understands about what person B feels (e.g., understanding of social faux pas) develops later, between the ages of 9 and 11 years (Baron-Cohen, O’Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999).

There is evidence that the ventral portion of medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) may be crucial for affective ToM. Lesion studies have shown that VMPFC lesion patients are impaired on tasks of affective ToM (such as understanding the true emotional state behind an ironic remark), but remain unimpaired on cognitive ToM tasks ( Shamay-Tsoory & Aharon-Peretz, 2007; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2005; Shamay-Tsoory, Tibi-Elhanany, & Aharon-Peretz, 2006 ). The VMPFC is anatomically well-connected for affective ToM processing, since it receives inputs from both medial PFC (involved in cognitive ToM) and regions involved in emotional and empathy processing, including amygdala, temporal pole, and anterior insula ( Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2006 ). Given behavioural evidence of relatively late development of affective ToM and anatomical evidence of the involvement of VMPFC in this process, we investigated whether there might be development between adolescence and adulthood in the involvement of VMPFC in affective ToM ( Sebastian et al., 2012).

We developed a cartoon vignette task based on a previous similar study in adults ( Völlm et al., 2006 ). As a non-verbal task, it had the advantage that results would not be confounded by differing linguistic abilities between adolescent and adult groups. Participants viewed 30 cartoons, with 10 cartoons in each of three conditions (affective ToM, cognitive ToM, physical causality). Each cartoon consisted of three frames which told a story. Stories were matched for social content, with each one portraying two characters. The final frame showed two possible endings, and the participant was asked to the most appropriate ending. In the affective ToM condition, ing the appropriate ending depended on the participant's ability to infer the emotional states of the two characters (e.g., would a mother comfort a child upset by a thunder storm, or laugh at them?). The cognitive ToM condition d inferences based on thoughts and beliefs (e.g., where would the characters place a ladder to reach apples in a tall tree?), while the physical causality condition acted as a control condition requiring basic cause and effect reasoning (e.g., does sunshine melt snow?). Participants were scanned using fMRI while completing the task, and d 15 adolescent males aged 10-16, and 15 IQ-matched male adult controls over the age of 24.

Across all participants, both cognitive ToM and affective ToM conditions (relative to the physical causality control condition) activated a core network of regions known to be involved in ToM processing, including superior temporal sulcus at the temporo-parietal junction (STS/TPJ), temporal pole, and precuneus. However, only affective ToM activated the medial PFC, with activation extending ventrally into VMPFC. Comparing adolescents with adults on the affective ToM>physical causality contrast, a region of VMPFC showed significantly greater activation to affective ToM than physical causality in the adolescent group, but no difference between conditions in the adults.

This finding mirrors evidence of increased activation in mPFC in adolescents compared with adults during cognitive ToM ( Blakemore, 2008 ). The region of VMPFC showing a group difference also overlapped with the region implicated in lesion studies as being crucial for affective ToM ( Shamay-Tsoory & Aharon-Peretz, 2007; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2005; Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2006 ). Since no group differences were found for the cognitive ToM>physical causality contrast, it may be that development of the neural basis of affective ToM may be particularly protracted even relative to cognitive ToM. This would fit with both behavioural evidence of protracted affective ToM development (e.g., Baron-Cohen, O’Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999 ), as well as with the model of affective ToM processing by Shamay-Tsoory et al. (2010) which posits that affective ToM is a more complex process than cognitive ToM, requiring integration between cognitive ToM and empathy processing.

Overall, our findings suggest that affective and cognitive ToM are associated with significant areas of overlap in terms of their neural representations, as well as areas of distinct and specialised processing such as VMPFC for affective ToM. The study also provides further evidence of al development within the ‘social brain’ between adolescence and adulthood ( Blakemore, 2008 ), with a greater BOLD response in adolescents than adults in a subregion of VMPFC during affective ToM relative to the physical causality control condition. Thus, it appears that the neural basis of the ability to integrate affective information into ToM-based decisions continues to develop between adolescence and adulthood. However, as with previous studies on cognitive ToM, further work is d to determine what this reduction in VMPFC activity with age means in computational terms.

Conclusions: Social Rejection and Affective ToM

This review has focused on recent studies of adolescent development of the ‘social brain’, i.e., the neural bases of social cognition. More specifically, however, the research discussed has focused on processes requiring the integration of emotion and social cognition. During social rejection, an emotional response is evoked by a social cause: without an understanding of the social situation, social rejection would not elicit such a strong emotional response. Similarly, during affective ToM, we need to be able to understand the social relationships between individuals to make sense of their emotional state. Adolescence is a time of increasing social sophistication, with adolescents expanding their social sphere into an extended peer group ( Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986 ), and understanding increasingly more about how they fit in and are seen by others ( Harter, 1990; Parker et al., 2006 ). At the same time, adolescents must process and regulate the emotional responses elicited by social situations. The studies presented here suggest that although adolescents are capable of sophisticated social and emotional reasoning, the neural substrates underlying these skills continue to develop between even late adolescence and adulthood. Future research should focus on the precise mechanisms of this development, as well as on how individual differences in the neural processing of social and emotional cues relates to outcomes in terms of adolescent behaviour and wellbeing.

Resumen ampliado

Numerosos estudios realizados con neuroimagen están demostrando que durante la adolescencia se da un desarrollo estructural y funcional continuado en los circuitos neurales que subyacen al comportamiento emocional y social. En este artículo exploraremos el desarrollo neurocognitivo del adolescente en dos aspectos: la sensibilidad al rechazo social y la teoría de la mente (TM). Los adolescentes se quejan frecuentemente de hipersensibilidad al rechazo social en la vida cotidiana. Los estudios presentados aquí tienen como objetivo explorar la posibilidad de que este fenómeno venga acompañado de un descenso en la activación de determinadas regiones del cerebro implicadas en la regulación emocional. A este respecto, también se discuten algunos estudios que han explorado las respuestas de adolescentes con trastornos del espectro autista. La TM es otro aspecto de la cognición social que sufre un desarrollo neurocognitivo entre la adolescencia y la adultez. Se refiere a la capacidad de comprender los pensamientos y las intenciones de los otros. En este trabajo mostraré datos de neuroimagen que sugieren que la capacidad de integrar la información emocional en las decisiones sobre la TM (afectiva) sigue desarrollándose entre la adolescencia y la adultez.

En este artículo definiremos la adolescencia, de manera general, como el período correspondiente a la segunda década de la vida. Mientras es cierto que existen influencias culturales importantes, el adolescente se caracteriza a menudo por presentar un aumento de la labilidad emocional y de comportamientos de alto riesgo. Los datos epidemiológicos también sugieren que la adolescencia es un período clave para el inicio de trastornos caracterizados por una desregulación emocional. Se ha sugerido que esta vulnerabilidad es consecuencia de un desarrollo cerebral aún en curso durante la adolescencia, particularmente en regiones cerebrales responsables de habilidades cognitivas superiores tales como la planificación, la toma de decisiones y la regulación de las emociones. Se supone que durante la adolescencia la maduración y desarrollo de las regiones regulatorias va con retraso respecto a las regiones de procesamiento emocional, dando lugar a una situación que podríamos definir gráficamente como que el cerebro adolescente es ‘un coche veloz con malos frenos’. Aunque esta es sin duda una descripción excesivamente simplista, proporciona no obstante una marco teórico y de trabajo útil, capaz de generar predicciones contras utilizando métodos como la resonancia magnética funcional (fMRI).

Un fenómeno que es capaz de captar particularmente bien las relaciones e interacciones entre los procesos sociales y los emocionales es la sensibilidad al rechazo social en los adolescentes. Los adolescentes parecen ser más sensibles a este rechazo que las personas de mayor o menor edad. Para explorar este fenómeno, se suele emplear el paradigma ‘Cyberball’, un juego de interacción virtual con otros dos jugadores en el que las acciones de los otros dos hipotéticos jugadores se programan de antemano tanto para incluir como para excluir del juego al sujeto de estudio, de una manera sistemática. Se pueden medir las reacciones a esta manipulación.

Cuando el paradigma Cyberball se ha empleado en entornos fMRI en adolescentes y adultos, se comprueba que, independientemente de la edad, todos los participantes activan una red de regiones cerebrales implicada en la evaluación social y las emociones negativas. Entre dichas áreas se encuentra el córtex medial prefrontal, el córtex cingulado anterior ventral y la corteza orbitofrontal medial. Sin embargo, el resultado más interesante es la diferente activación entre grupos del córtex ventrolateral prefrontal (VLPFC por sus siglas en inglés). Los adultos muestran una mayor activación en el VLPFC derecho durante el rechazo en comparación con la inclusión, mientras los adolescentes no muestran diferencias de activación en dicha zona al comparar la situación de rechazo con la de inclusión. Posiblemente, esta falta de diferente activación refleja una escasa capacidad por parte de los adolescentes para utilizar flexiblemente el VLPFC derecho en la regulación emocional en función de las necesidades situacionales. Se sabe que el VLPFC derecho está implicado en la regulación de los efectos emocionales negativos de una situación de rechazo social. Los datos apoyarían por tanto que una estrategia particularmente beneficiosa para los adolescentes sería centrarse en las habilidades de regulación de la emoción, particularmente aquellas que implican al VLPFC.

Con respecto a la teoría de la mente (TM), mientras hasta hace poco se pensaba que se desarrollaba en torno a los 4 años de edad, las evidencias más recientes demuestran por el contrario que la TM continúa desarrollándose y mejorando hasta las últimas etapas de la adolescencia. Estas mejoras en la TM durante la adolescencia tendrían su fundamento en el desarrollo continuado de áreas relevantes del cerebro. Normalmente se distingue entre subprocesos cognitivos y afectivos en la TM. La TM cognitiva incluye la ‘clásica’ TM, es decir, la comprensión de los pensamientos, creencias e intenciones de los otros. Por su parte, la TM afectiva se refiere a la habilidad para inferir lo que siente una persona. Mientras los niños de 6 o 7 años ya son capaces de superar pruebas complejas de TM cognitiva (p. ej., comprender lo que la persona A entiende acerca de lo que piensa la persona B), la capacidad para representarse lo que la persona A entiende acerca de lo que la persona B siente (p. ej., comprender las consecuencias de violar las normas sociales) se desarrolla más tarde, entre los 9 y los 11 años de edad. Hay evidencia de que la porción ventral del córtex prefrontal medial (VMPFC por sus siglas en inglés) puede ser crucial para la TM afectiva. Así, en experimentos con fMRI se puede apreciar cómo tanto la TM cognitiva como la afectiva activan una serie de regiones cerebrales implicadas en la TM, incluyendo el surco temporal superior en la unión temporo-parietal, el polo temporal y el precúneo, solo la TM afectiva implica al VMPFC. De los diferentes estudios realizados se deduce la posibilidad de que la maduración de estas regiones del VMPFC esté particularmente retrasada, especialmente en relación al resto de regiones implicadas en la TM (especialmente en la TM cognitiva), no habiéndose producido su maduración aún durante la adolescencia. En línea con estos hallazgos, parece que la TM afectiva es en sí un proceso mucho más complejo que la TM cognitiva, pues requiere de la integración entre la TM cognitiva y los procesos de empatía. Curiosamente, esta región VMPFC se muestra mucho más activa en adolescentes que en adultos en tareas de TM afectiva, lo que sugiere que su menor activación con la edad se relaciona con una mayor eficacia en su función.

En definitiva, la adolescencia es un periodo en el que el cerebro social continúa madurando, aumentando y mejorando su sofisticación y eficacia. La adolescencia es un período en el cual la esfera social se hace más compleja, a la par que aumenta el tamaño del grupo social de referencia cercana (de miembros de la misma edad) y cada vez se comprende mejor cómo encaja uno en un grupo y cómo es visto por los otros. Los adolescentes deben aprender a ser capaces de procesar y regular las respuestas emocionales provocadas por las distintas situaciones sociales. Comprender el cerebro adolescente nos permite entender mejor su mente y su comportamiento y, por lo tanto, adaptar los programas educativos a las peculiaridades de esta etapa vital.

Conflict of Interest

The author of this article declares no conflict of interest.

References
 
Amodio and Frith, 2006
 
D.M. Amodio
C.D. Frith
Meeting of minds: The medial frontal cortex and social cognition
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
7
2006
268-77
Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
 
S. Baron-Cohen
M. O’Riordan
V. Stone
R. Jones
K. Plaisted
Recognition of faux pas by normally developing children and children with Asperger syndrome or high-ing autism
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
29
1999
407-18
Bauminger and Kasari, 2000
 
N. Bauminger
C. Kasari
Loneliness and friendship in high-ing children with autism
Child Development
71
2000
447-56
Blakemore, 2008
 
S.J. Blakemore
The social brain in adolescence
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
9
2008
267-327
Bolling et al., 2011
 
D.Z. Bolling
N.B. Pitskel
B. Deen
M.J. Crowley
J.C. McPartland
M.D. Kaiser
K.A. Pelphrey
Enhanced neural responses to rule violation in children with autism: a comparison to social exclusion
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
1
2011
280-94
Bush et al., 2000
 
G. Bush
P. Luu
M.I. Posner
Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
4
2000
215-22
Casey et al., 2008
 
B. Casey
R.M. Jones
T.A. Hare
The Adolescent Brain
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
1124
2008
111-26
Crick and Nelson, 2002
 
N.R. Crick
D.A. Nelson
Relational and physical victimization within friendships: nobody told me there’d be friends like these
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
30
2002
599-607
Damon, 2004
 
W. Damon
Foreword
Handbook of Adolescent Psychology
2nd ed.
John Wiley & Sons
Hoboken, NJ
2004
Dumontheil et al., 2009
 
I. Dumontheil
I.A. Apperly
S.J. Blakemore
Online usage of theory of mind continues to develop in late adolescence
Developmental Science
13
2009
331-8
Eisenberger et al., 2003
 
N.I. Eisenberger
M.D. Lieberman
K.D. Williams
Does rejection hurt?
An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science
302
2003
290-2
Frith, 2004
 
U. Frith
Emanuel Miller lecture: confusions and controversies about Asperger syndrome
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
45
2004
672-86
Frith and Frith, 2007
 
C.D. Frith
U. Frith
Social cognition in humans
Current Biology
17
2007
R724-32
Gallagher and Frith, 2003
 
H.L. Gallagher
C.D. Frith
Functional imaging of ‘Theory of Mind’
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
7
2003
77-83
Giedd et al., 1999
 
J.N. Giedd
J. Blumenthal
N.O. Jeffries
F.X. Castellanos
H. Liu
A. Zijdenbos
J.L. Rapoport
Brain development during childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal MRI study
Nature Neuroscience
2
1999
861-3
Gogtay et al., 2004
 
N. Gogtay
J.N. Giedd
L. Lusk
K.M. Hayashi
Greenstein
A.C. Vaituzis
P.M. Thomson
Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
101
2004
8174-9
Harter, 1990
 
S. Harter
Developmental differences in the nature of self- representations: Implications for the understanding, assessment, and treatment of maladaptive behavior
Cognitive Therapy & Research
14
1990
113-42
Kessler et al., 2005
 
R.C. Kessler
P. Berglund
O. Demler
R. Jin
K.R. Merikangas
E.E. Walters
Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication
Archives of General Psychiatry
62
2005
593-602
Kloep, 1999
 
M. Kloep
Love is all you need? Focusing on adolescents’ life concerns from an ecological point of view
Journal of Adolescence
22
1999
49-63
Mancini et al., 2005
 
C. Mancini
M. Van Ameringen
M. Bennett
B. Patterson
C. Watson
Emerging treatments for child and adolescent social phobia: a review
Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology
15
2005
589-607
Masten et al., 2011
 
C.L. Masten
N.L. Colich
J.D. Rudie
S.Y. Bookheimer
N.I. Eisenberger
M. Dapretto
An fMRI investigation of responses to peer rejection in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
1
2011
260-70
Masten et al., 2009
 
C.L. Masten
N.I. Eisenberger
L.A. Borofsky
J.H. Pfeifer
K. McNealy
J.C. Mazziotta
M. Dapretto
Neural correlates of social exclusion during adolescence: understanding the distress of peer rejection
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
4
2009
143-57
McPartland et al., 2011
 
J.C. McPartland
M.J. Crowley
D.R. Perszyk
A. Naples
C.E. Mukerji
J. Wu
L.C. Mayes
Temporal dynamics reveal atypical brain response to social exclusion in autism
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
1
2011
271-9
Nelson et al., 2005
 
E.E. Nelson
E. Leibenluft
E.B. McClure
D.S. Pine
The social re-orientation of adolescence: A neuroscience perspective on the process and its relation to psychopathology
Psychological Medicine
35
2005
163-74
O’Brien and Bierman, 1988
 
S.F. O’Brien
K.L. Bierman
Conceptions and perceived influence of peer groups: interviews with preadolescents and adolescents
Child Development
59
1988
1360-5
Parker et al., 2006
 
J.G. Parker
K.H. Rubin
S.A. Erath
J.C. Wojslawowicz
A.A. Buskirk
Peer relationships, child development, and adjustment: A developmental psychopathology perspective
Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 1: Theory and Methods
2nd ed.
Wiley
New York
2006
96-161
Paus et al., 2008
 
T. Paus
M. Keshavan
J.N. Giedd
Why do many psychiatric disorders emerge during adolescence?
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
9
2008
947-57
Perner and Wimmer, 1985
 
J. Perner
H. Wimmer
“John thinks that Mary thinks that…”: Attribution of second-order beliefs by 5- to 10-year-old children
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
39
1985
437-71
Sebastian et al., 2009
 
C. Sebastian
S.J. Blakemore
T. Charman
Reactions to ostracism in adolescents with autism spectrum conditions
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
39
2009
1122-30
Sebastian et al., 2008
 
C. Sebastian
S. Burnett
S.J. Blakemore
Development of the self concept during adolescence
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
12
2008
441-6
Sebastian et al., 2012
 
C.L. Sebastian
N.M.G. Fontaine
G. Bird
S.-J Blakemore
S.A. De Brito
E.J.P. McCrory
E. Viding
Neural processing associated with cognitive and affective Theory of Mind in adolescents and adults
Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
7
2012
53-63
Sebastian et al., 2010a
 
C.L. Sebastian
J.P. Roiser
G.C. Tan
E. Viding
N.W. Wood
S.J. Blakemore
Effects of age and MAOA genotype on the neural processing of social rejection
Genes Brain & Behavior
9
2010
628-37
Sebastian et al., 2011
 
C.L. Sebastian
G.C.Y. Tan
J.P. Roiser
E. Viding
I. Dumontheil
S.-J. Blakemore
Developmental influences on the neural bases of responses to social rejection: implications of social neuroscience for education
NeuroImage
57
2011
686-94
Sebastian et al., 2010b
 
C. Sebastian
E. Viding
K.D. Williams
S.J. Blakemore
Social brain development and the affective consequences of ostracism in adolescence
Brain and Cognition
72
2010
134-45
Shamay-Tsoory and Aharon-Peretz, 2007
 
S.G. Shamay-Tsoory
J. Aharon-Peretz
Dissociable prefrontal networks for cognitive and affective theory of mind: a lesion study
Neuropsychologia
45
2007
3054-67
Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2010
 
S.G. Shamay-Tsoory
H. Harari
J. Aharon-Peretz
Y. Levkovitz
The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in affective theory of mind deficits in criminal offenders with psychopathic tendencies
Cortex
46
2010
668-77
Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2006
 
S.G. Shamay-Tsoory
Y. Tibi-Elhanany
J. Aharon-Peretz
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in understanding affective but not cognitive theory of mind stories
Social Neuroscience
1
2006
149-66
Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2005
 
S.G. Shamay-Tsoory
R. Tomer
B.D. Berger
D. Goldsher
J. Aharon-Peretz
Impaired “affective theory of mind” is associated with right ventromedial prefrontal damage
Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology
18
2005
55-67
Shaw et al., 2008
 
P. Shaw
N.J. Kabani
J.P. Lerch
K. Eckstrand
R. Lenroot
N. Gogtay
S.P. Wise
Neurodevelopmental trajectories of the human cerebral cortex
The Journal of Neuroscience
28
2008
3586-94
Singer et al., 2009
 
T. Singer
H.D. Critchley
K. Preuschoff
A common role of insula in feelings, empathy and uncertainty
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
13
2009
334-40
Sowell et al., 1999
 
E.R. Sowell
P.M. Thompson
C.J. Holmes
R. Batth
T.L. Jernigan
A.W. Toga
Localizing age-related changes in brain structure between childhood and adolescence using statistical parametric mapping
Neuroimage
9
1999
587-97
Spear, 2000
 
L.P. Spear
The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
24
2000
417-63
Steinberg, 2008
 
L. Steinberg
A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking
Developmental Review
28
2008
78-106
Steinberg and Silverberg, 1986
 
L. Steinberg
S.B. Silverberg
The vicissitudes of autonomy in early adolescence
Child Development
57
1986
841-51
Tottenham et al., 2011
 
N. Tottenham
T.A. Hare
B.J. Casey
Behavioral assessment of emotion discrimination, emotion regulation, and cognitive control in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood
Frontiers in Psychology
2
39
2011
Van Roekel et al., 2010
 
E. Van Roekel
R.H. Scholte
R. Didden
Bullying among adolescents with autism spectrum disorders: prevalence and perception
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
40
2010
63-73
Völlm et al., 2006
 
B.A. Völlm
A.N.W. Taylor
P. Richardson
R. Corcoran
J. Stirling
S. McKie
R. Elliott
Neuronal correlates of theory of mind and empathy: a al magnetic resonance imaging study in a nonverbal task
Neuroimage
29
2006
90-8
Wang et al., 2009
 
J. Wang
R.J. Iannotti
T.R. Nansel
School bullying among adolescents in the United States: Physical, verbal, relational, and cyber
Journal of Adolescent Health
45
2009
368-75
Williams et al., 1996
 
J.M. Williams
A. Mathews
C. MacLeod
The emotional Stroop task and psychopathology
Psychological Bulletin
120
1996
3-24
Williams, 1997
 
K.D. Williams
Social ostracism
Aversive Interpersonal Behaviors
Plenum
New York
1997
133-70
Williams, 2007
 
K.D. Williams
Ostracism
Annual Review of Psychology
58
2007
425-52
Williams et al., 2000
 
K.D. Williams
C.K. Cheung
W. Choi
Cyberostracism: effects of being ignored over the Internet
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
79
2000
748-62
Williamson et al., 2008
 
S. Williamson
J. Craig
R. Slinger
Exploring the relationship between measures of self-esteem and psychological adjustment among adolescents with Asperger Syndrome
Autism
14
2008
391-402
Zadro et al., 2004
 
L. Zadro
K.D. Williams
R. Richardson
How low can you go?. Ostracism by a computer is sufficient to lower self-reported levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
40
2004
560-7

Copyright © 2024. Colegio Oficial de la Psicología de Madrid

© Copyright 2024. Colegio Oficial de la Psicología de Madrid ContactoPolítica de privacidadPolítica de cookies

Utilizamos cookies propias y de terceros para mejorar nuestros servicios y conocer sus preferencias mediante el análisis de sus hábitos de navegación. Si continua navegando, consideramos que acepta su uso. Puede acceder a política de cookies para obtener más información.

Aceptar