from Subpart II.2 - Childhood and Adolescence: The Development of Human Thinking
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2022
Adolescence, which is defined as the transition phase between childhood and adulthood, roughly between ten and twenty-two years of age, is marked by pronounced behavioral changes in cognitive control and decision-making (Crone & Dahl, 2012). For instance, adolescents show with advancing age an increased ability to control impulses and increases in goal-directed behavior (Hofmann et al., 2012). At the same time, adolescence is often characterized by an increase in exploratory and risk-taking behavior, possibly related to the need to develop independence from parents and develop their identity (Steinberg, 2008). In addition to these behavioral changes, adolescence is marked by profound neural changes both in functional brain activity and connectivity, and in terms of structural brain changes and connections (Mills & Tamnes, 2014). In this chapter, we will discuss current literature on two aspects that develop in tandem across adolescence, cognitive control (Section 23.1) and risky decision-making (Section 23.2; for an overview of paradigms to measure these two aspects, see Table 23.1), as well as their neural developmental patterns (for an overview of brain regions and connections, see Figure 23.1). Section 23.1 covers the development of cognitive control and how structural brain development and sex steroids contribute to this development. Section 23.2 discusses which underlying behavioral and functional neural factors contribute to the development of risky decision-making. Finally, Section 23.3 converges the two parts and considers avenues for future research.
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