Protracted prediction: Neurodevelopment of reward processing in the adolescent cerebellum

Adolescence is characterized by heightened reward sensitivity and risky decision-making. Prevailing neurodevelopmental frameworks typically attribute these behavioral trends to a maturational imbalance between rapidly developing motivational brain regions, and slower-maturing prefrontal cognitive control circuitry. However, these models largely overlook the cerebellum—a structure that demonstrates protracted development across adolescence and reciprocal connectivity with both striatum and prefrontal cortex. Computational models also highlight the cerebellum’s central role in reinforcement learning and error-based model updating, making it a potentially critical region for understanding adolescent reward processing. To evaluate this, we conducted a systematic literature search and coordinate-based meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies examining reward anticipation and receipt in healthy adolescents (19 studies; 55 cerebellar peaks). Results demonstrate a striking functional dissociation. During reward anticipation, adolescent cerebellar activation mirrors adult topographies—demonstrating widely distributed activation patterns across the cerebellar lobules and Vermis, localized to cerebellar regions that are functionally connected with salience, somatomotor, and frontoparietal cortico-cerebellar networks. Conversely, while reward receipt also elicits widespread cerebellar activation in adolescents, this stands in contrast to highly focal feedback-locked reward activity seen only in the Vermis in adult studies. We interpret these findings through the lens of cerebellar reinforcement learning. We argue that widespread reward outcome-locked BOLD activity in adolescents may reflect broader parallel fiber recruitment, supporting the active maintenance of short-timescale eligibility traces required for credit assignment while internal forward models are being constructed during development. Ultimately—rather than a biological epiphenomenon—it is hypothesized that this active cerebellar computation during adolescence may contribute to the developmental shaping of prefrontal networks necessary for normative regulation of motivation and decision-making in adulthood.