Abstract
Although altered brain activation during reward tasks has been found in a number of heritable psychiatric disorders and health outcomes, the familial nature of reward-related brain activation remains unexplored. In this study, we investigated the degree to which the magnitude of mesocorticolimbic reward system signal intensities in anticipation of reward during the monetary incentive delay (MID) task was similar within 46 pairs of adolescent, monozygotic twins. Significant within-pair correlations in brain activation during anticipation of gain were found in one third of the 18 reward-related regions investigated. These regions were the right nucleus accumbens, left and right posterior caudate, right anterior caudate, left insula, and anterior cingulate cortex. This serves as evidence for a shared familial contribution to individual differences in reward related brain activity in certain key reward processing regions.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 7-14 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Biological Psychology |
Volume | 103 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants R21 AA 017314 and R01 DA036216 , as well as P30 NS057091 and P30 NS076408 for “ Institutional Center Cores for Advanced Neuroimaging ” at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the sponsoring agencies or the United States government.
Keywords
- FMRI
- Individual differences
- Monetary incentive delay task
- Reward system