Adolescent brain wiring

[wolfhnd]

Adolescent brains biologically wired to engage in risky behavior, study finds

There are biological motivations behind the stereotypically poor decisions and risky behavior associated with adolescence, new research from a University of Texas at Austin psychologist reveals.

Previous studies have found that teenagers tend to be more sensitive to rewards than either children or adults. Now, Russell Poldrack and fellow researchers have taken the first major step in identifying which brain systems cause adolescents to have these urges and what implications these biological differences may hold for rash adolescent behavior.

"Our results raise the hypothesis that these risky behaviors, such as experimenting with drugs or having unsafe sex, are actually driven by over activity in the mesolimbic dopamine system, a system which appears to be the final pathway to all addictions, in the adolescent brain," Poldrack said.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 060310.php