Several studies have observed immaturity of adolescent cognitive control systems, along with poorer behavioral performance (Luna et al., 2010). For example, during tasks that require the inhibition of a prepotent response (the performance of which improves with age), adolescents have increased PFC activity in some subregions and decreased activity in others (Bunge et al., 2002; Rubia et al., 2000; Tamm et al., 2002). During an antisaccade cognitive control task, adolescent (but not adult) ventral striatum activity was reduced while viewing a cue that indicated if reward was available during a given trial, but it was more activated than its adult counterpart during reward anticipation (Geier et al., 2009). Thus adolescents generally activate similar cognitive and affective structures as adults, although often with different magnitudes or spatial and temporal patterns, or levels functional interconnectivity (Hwang et al., 2010).
