Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Adaptive Risk-Taking Behavior in Preschool-Aged Children

PROJECT SUMMARY Although risk-taking is traditionally associated with maladaptive outcomes, accumulating evidence suggests that risk-taking facilitates implicit learning which, consequently, improves a variety of social behaviors. Despite these findings, the adaptive utility of risk-taking behaviors during early childhood is often overlooked, causing missed opportunities to improve concurrent and future developmental outcomes. It is critical that the adaptive role of risk-taking is characterized during the preschool years, when the neural circuitry that underlies both risk-taking behavior and social development is rapidly developing. Thus, the specific objective of this proposal is to examine relations between risk-taking tendencies and adaptive phenotypes in preschool-aged children (4 and 5 years of age). The central hypothesis of this proposal is that behavioral and neural markers of risk-taking will relate to implicit learning and adaptive social behaviors in preschoolers. The rationale for this research is that the identification of adaptive outcomes associated with risk-taking behaviors will inform clinical interventions and educational practices that encourage appropriate and systematic risk-taking to bolster learning and social development in young children. The central hypothesis will be tested through three specific aims: 1) To define associations between risk-taking and implicit learning (Aim 1), preschool-aged children will complete a computerized risk-taking task that relies on implicit learning. The rate of risk-taking behavior at the beginning of the task will be compared to overall task performance to determine how exploratory risk-taking affects learning; 2) To delineate relations between risk-taking and social behavior (Aim 2), outcomes from the risk-taking task will be correlated with caregiver- and teacher-report of children’s social behaviors obtained through gold-standard assessments as well as a secondary risk-taking task designed to directly assess child engagement in social risk; and 3) To identify neural mechanisms underlying risk-taking tendencies in preschool-aged children (exploratory Aim 3), a separate sample of children will complete the risk-taking task while brain activity is simultaneously recorded via electroencephalography (EEG). Outcomes from the EEG recording (e.g., event-related potentials and spectral power) will be correlated with performance on the risk-taking measures. This proposal is innovative because it is expected to provide strong scientific justification for the conceptualization of risk-taking as a dynamic construct with adaptive outcomes including learning and social behaviors. This hypothesis contrasts the traditional deficit approach to risk-taking during early childhood when risk-taking is presumed dangerous and often discouraged. This work is significant because evidence of risk-taking as an adaptive behavior may reform clinical and educational practices that discourage risk-taking behaviors. Furthermore, the use of EEG is expected to elucidate new, mechanistic insights into neural correlates of risk-taking in preschoolers and, consequently, inform clinical targets in populations that exhibit maladaptive risk-taking behaviors. This proposal also offers unique training opportunities to undergraduates and will build research infrastructure at the PI’s home institution.