Better to Give Than Receive: Altruistic Teens Less Likely to Suffer from Depression

It really is better to give than to receive--especially when it comes to teens. Scientists have discovered that altruistic teenagers are less likely to suffer from depression.

Adolescence is a time of heightened risk-taking. This could be due to their increased sensitivity to rewards. In addition to this heightened risk-taking, adolescents also experience and increased likelihood of depressive symptoms.

In order to learn a little bit more about this occurrence, the researchers focused on the ventral striatum, a brain region that regulates the feelings of pleasure in response to rewards. They used a functional brain scan in order to measure ventral striatum activity in adolescents who either gave money to others, kept money or made risky financial decisions in hope of earning a reward. The scientists also tested the volunteers' depressive symptoms at the beginning and then at the end of the year.

So what did they find? It turns out that activity in the ventral striatum in response to different rewards predicted whether the subjects' depressive symptoms would worsen or lessen over time.

"If they show higher levels of reward activation in the ventral striatum in the context of the risk-taking task, they show increases in depressive symptoms over time," said Eva Telzer, one of the researchers, in a news release. "And if they show higher reward activation in the pro-social context, they show declines in depression."

The findings suggest that if researchers can somehow redirect teens away from risk-taking or self-centered rewards, then there may be a more positive impact on their well-being over time. Not only that, but the research reveals that ventral striatum activation may have a positive role in the teen brain, and not just a negative one. The social context in which a teen feels rewarded may matter more than the feeling itself.

"What's exciting about this is that the very same area of the brain can predict both detriments to well-being and protection of well-being," said Telzer in a news release. "It depends on the context in which it's happening."

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.