Maturation of basal ganglia (BG) and frontoparietal circuitry parallels developmental gains in working memory (WM). Neurobiological models posit that adult WM performance is enhanced by communication between reward-sensitive BG and frontoparietal regions, via increased stability in the maintenance of goal-relevant neural patterns. It is not known whether this reward-driven pattern stability mechanism may have a role in WM development. In 34 young adolescents (12.16-14.72 years old) undergoing fMRI, reward-sensitive BG regions were localized using an incentive processing task. WM-sensitive regions were localized using a delayed-response WM task. Functional connectivity analyses were used to examine the stability of goal-relevant functional connectivity patterns during WM delay periods between and within reward-sensitive BG and WM-sensitive frontoparietal regions. Analyses revealed that more stable goal-relevant connectivity patterns between reward-sensitive BG and WM-sensitive frontoparietal regions were associated with both greater adolescent age and WM ability. Computational lesion models also revealed that functional connections to WM-sensitive frontoparietal regions from reward-sensitive BG uniquely increased the stability of goal-relevant functional connectivity patterns within frontoparietal regions. Findings suggested (1) the extent to which goal-relevant communication patterns within reward-frontoparietal circuitry are maintained increases with adolescent development and WM ability and (2) communication from reward-sensitive BG to frontoparietal regions enhances the maintenance of goal-relevant neural patterns in adolescents' WM. The maturation of reward-driven stability of goal-relevant neural patterns may provide a putative mechanism for understanding the developmental enhancement of WM.

中文翻译：

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奖赏敏感基底神经节稳定青少年目标相关神经模式的维持。

基底神经节 (BG) 和额顶叶电路的成熟与工作记忆 (WM) 的发育增益并行。神经生物学模型认为，通过提高维持目标相关神经模式的稳定性，奖励敏感的 BG 和额顶叶区域之间的沟通可以增强成人的 WM 表现。目前尚不清楚这种奖励驱动的模式稳定性机制是否在 WM 发展中发挥作用。在 34 名接受功能磁共振成像的青少年（12.16-14.72 岁）中，使用激励处理任务来定位奖励敏感的 BG 区域。使用延迟响应 WM 任务来定位 WM 敏感区域。功能连接分析用于检查奖励敏感的 BG 和 WM 敏感的额顶叶区域之间和内部的 WM 延迟期间与目标相关的功能连接模式的稳定性。分析显示，奖赏敏感的 BG 和 WM 敏感的额顶叶区域之间更稳定的目标相关连接模式与更大的青少年年龄和 WM 能力相关。计算损伤模型还表明，从奖励敏感的 BG 到 WM 敏感的额顶叶区域的功能连接独特地增加了额顶叶区域内目标相关功能连接模式的稳定性。研究结果表明（1）奖励额顶叶回路中与目标相关的沟通模式的维持程度随着青少年的发展和 WM 能力而增加；（2）从奖励敏感的 BG 到额顶叶区域的沟通增强了目标相关神经模式的维持在青少年的 WM 中。目标相关神经模式的奖励驱动稳定性的成熟可能为理解 WM 的发展增强提供了一种假定的机制。