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Prosocial behavior relates to the rate and timing of cortical thinning from adolescence to young adulthood
- Lia Ferschmann
- Nandita Vijayakumar
- Håkon Grydeland
- Knut Overbye
- Donatas Sederevicius
- Paulina Due-Tønnessen
- Anders M. Fjell
- Kristine Beate Walhovd
- Jennifer Pfeifer
- Christian K. Tamnes
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Description: Prosocial behavior, or voluntary actions that intentionally benefit others, relate to desirable developmental outcomes such as peer acceptance, while lack of prosocial behavior has been associated with several neurodevelopmental disorders. Mapping the biological foundations of prosociality may thus aid understanding of both normal and abnormal development, yet how prosociality relates to cortical development is largely unknown. Here, relations between prosocial behavior, as measured by the self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and changes in apparent thickness across the cortical mantle were examined using mixed-effects models. The sample consisted of 169 healthy individuals (92 females) aged 12-26 with repeated MRI from up to 3 time points, at approximately 3-year intervals (301 scans). In regions associated with social cognition and behavioral control, higher prosociality was associated with accelerated apparent cortical thinning (AC-thinning) during early-to-middle adolescence, followed by attenuation of this process during the transition to young adulthood. Comparatively, lower prosociality was related to initially slower AC-thinning, followed by comparatively protracted AC-thinning into mid-twenties. In conclusion, this study showed that prosocial behavior is associated with regional development of apparent cortical thickness in adolescence and young adulthood. These results suggest that the rate of AC-thinning in these regions, as well as its timing, may be factors related to prosocial behavior.