Abstract
BACKGROUND: Adolescence is characterized by ongoing neurocognitive maturation, particularly in regions that support social-emotional processing and cognitive control. Despite extensive research on emotion regulation, the developmental trajectories of critical neural networks-such as the salience network and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-remain incompletely understood. METHODS: We prospectively enrolled 30 adolescents (12-18 years), 35 early adults (19-24 years), and 35 adults (25-34 years). While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants performed an emotional discrimination task on facial expressions. The imaging data were analyzed to assess the neural activity across the emotional conditions, and a generalized psychophysiological interaction approach was applied to examine salience network connectivity. RESULTS: Adolescents exhibited lower behavioral performance than adults. Regarding brain activation, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and bilateral insula-key components of the salience network-seemingly differentiated adolescents from early adults and adults. In contrast, DLPFC activity distinguished adults from the two younger groups. Functional connectivity analyses revealed that adolescents either over-sustained or under-recruited dACC-insula connectivity during emotional transitions, correlating with poorer behavioral performance. CONCLUSION: These findings underscore distinct developmental trajectories for the salience network and the DLPFC, with adolescents showing heightened vulnerability in social-emotional processing and cognitive control.