points in the task (Figure 1b). As neural inhibition is critical for the controlling the precise timing of spikes and entraining synchronized oscillatory activity (Cardin et al., 2009; Fries et al., 2007; Sohal et al., 2009), reduced task-related adolescent orbitofrontal cortex neuronal inhibition may be directly related to larger-scale neural encoding differences observed in this study and described by others. Finally, throughout much of the task adolescents exhibited greater cross-trial spike-timing variability, which could indicate lower signal-to-noise in adolescent prefrontal cortex. Therefore, as the prefrontal cortex develops, increased phasic inhibition at the single-unit level could support greater intra- and inter-regional neural coordination and processing efficiency.
