Korean J Biol Psychiatry.  2019 Oct;26(2):47-58. 10.0000/kjbp.2019.26.2.47.

Brain Activation Related to Perspective-Taking in Adolescents: Differences from Adults

• Park SK
• Son JW
• Lee S
• Ghim HR
• Lee SI
• Shin CJ
• Kim S
• Ju G

• KMID: 2469515
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.0000/kjbp.2019.26.2.47

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between adolescents and adults, in the perspective-taking ability, as well as the brain activation patterns during the perspective-taking situation.
METHODS
We recruited healthy adolescents aged 13 years to 15 years (n = 20) and adults aged 19 years to 29 years (n = 20). All the subjects were scanned while performing the perspective-taking task, in which an emotional situation was presented in the form of statements comprising first person, as well as third person perspectives. Differences in brain activation between groups were assessed by contrasting neural activity during the tasks.
RESULTS
In the between-group analysis, while performing the third-person perspective-taking task, the adolescent group showed greater neural activities in the middle frontal gyrus and precentral gyrus as compared to the adult group. Positive correlation was observed between the activity in the frontal areas (Brodmann area 6/9) and the score of scales related to perspective-taking and social cognition in the adolescent group.
CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that several frontal brain areas of adolescents needs to be overactivated in order to compensate for low perspective-taking ability when they ought to take another person's point of view.

Keyword

Adolescence; Social cognition; Perspective-taking; Brain; fMRI

MeSH Terms

Adolescent*
Adult*
Brain*
Cognition
Frontal Lobe
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Weights and Measures