Early adolescence is marked by puberty, and is also a time of flux in self-perception. However, there is limited research on the neural correlates of self-evaluation in relation to pubertal development. The current study examined relationships between neural activation during self-evaluation of social traits and maturation (age and pubertal development) in a community sample of female adolescents. Participants (N = 143; age M = 11.65, range = 10.0–13.0) completed a functional MRI task in which they judged the self-descriptiveness of adjectives for prosocial, antisocial and social status-related traits. Pubertal development was based on self-report, and was also examined using morning salivary testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, and estradiol. Contrary to preregistered hypotheses, neither age nor pubertal development were related to neural activation during self-evaluation. We further examined whether activation in two regions-of-interest, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and perigenual anterior cingulate (pgACC), was associated with trial-level self-evaluative behavior. In line with preregistered hypotheses, higher vmPFC and pgACC activation during self-evaluation were both associated with a higher probability of endorsing negative adjectives, and a lower probability of endorsing positive adjectives. Future studies should examine neural trajectories of self-evaluation longitudinally, and investigate the predictive value of the neural correlates of self-evaluation for adolescent mental health.

青春期早期以青春期为标志，也是自我认知不断变化的时期。然而，关于与青春期发育相关的自我评价的神经相关性的研究有限。当前的研究调查了女性青少年社区样本中社会特征自我评估过程中的神经激活与成熟（年龄和青春期发育）之间的关系。参与者（N = 143；年龄M = 11.65，范围 = 10.0–13.0) 完成了一项功能性 MRI 任务，在该任务中，他们判断了形容词对亲社会、反社会和社会地位相关特征的自我描述性。青春期发育基于自我报告，并且还使用早晨唾液睾酮、脱氢表雄酮和雌二醇进行检查。与预先登记的假设相反，年龄和青春期发育都与自我评估期间的神经激活无关。我们进一步检查了两个感兴趣区域的激活，腹内侧前额叶皮层 (vmPFC) 和膝周前扣带回 (pgACC)，是否与试验级别的自我评估行为相关。与预先注册的假设一致，自我评估期间更高的 vmPFC 和 pgACC 激活都与更高的认可负面形容词的可能性有关，并且支持正面形容词的概率较低。未来的研究应该纵向检查自我评价的神经轨迹，并调查自我评价的神经相关性对青少年心理健康的预测价值。