# Maturation of Social and Non-Social Reward Processing in the Adolescent Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex

> **NIH MH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA · 2026 · $572,672

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Adolescence is a time of substantial development attributed to the maturation of brain circuits that underlie the
acquisition of new cognitive, emotional, and social skills. It is also a time of maximum vulnerability for mental
disorders. In the past decade, the incidence of anxiety, depression, and suicide increased by ~60% in
adolescents, remarkably more in females than in males. The social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic
added to the severity of the national and international statistics. To fully address the current youth mental
health crisis, we need to understand how and why the dramatic reorganization of the adolescent brain
contributes to the increased vulnerability to mental disorders. The studies proposed here rest on the
assumption that the remodeling of the reward circuits of the brain creates the shared foundation of cognitive,
affective, and social maturation during adolescence. Our multifaceted project addresses foundational gaps in
our knowledge on how reward-driven motivational states inform adolescent behaviors such as risk-taking,
pleasure-seeking, impulsivity, and a range of emotional responses to challenges of the social environment. We
designed a within-subject, longitudinal study that spans the 2.5 - 3-year duration of adolescence in non-human
primates. During this period, we will obtain repeated samplings of neurophysiological data recorded from the
amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in the context of the same behavioral tasks. In parallel, we will longitudinally
monitor morphometric and microstructural changes in the gray and white matter of the brain through serial MRI
scans, complemented by physical and hormonal measures of pubertal maturation. The three specific aims
address the neural basis of three different aspects of reward processing in the subcircuit of the amygdala and
orbitofrontal cortex. First, we will use a delay discounting task to determine the cellular and circuit level
changes that underlie the increasing tole

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11235155
- **Project number:** 5R01MH135267-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
- **Principal Investigator:** Steve W. C. Chang; Katalin M Gothard
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** MH
- **Fiscal year:** 2026
- **Award amount:** $572,672
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2024-02-20T00:00:00 → 2028-11-30T00:00:00

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11235155

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11235155, Maturation of Social and Non-Social Reward Processing in the Adolescent Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex (5R01MH135267-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-20 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11235155. Licensed CC0.

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