Development of MPFC function mediates shifts in self-protective behavior provoked by social feedback

How do people protect themselves in response to negative social feedback from others? How does such a self-protective system develop and affect social decisions? Here, using a novel reciprocal artwork evaluation task, we demonstrate that youths show self-protective bias based on current negative social evaluation, whereas into early adulthood, individuals show self-protective bias based on accumulated evidence of negative social evaluation. While the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) mediates self-defensive behavior based on both current and accumulated feedback, the rostromedial prefrontal cortex (RMPFC) exclusively mediates self-defensive behavior based on longer feedback history. Further analysis using a reinforcement learning model suggests that RMPFC extending into VMPFC, together with posterior parietal cortex (PPC), contribute to age-related increases in self-protection bias with deep feedback integration by computing the discrepancy between current feedback and previously estimated value of self-protection. These findings indicate that the development of RMPFC function is critical for sophisticated self-protective decisions.