Question

6. Substance use and exploration peak among U.S. 19- to 25- year-olds. In his op-ed for the New York Times, clinical psychologist, Richard Friedman, describes adolescent brains as unique in that our decision making portions of the brain (prefrontal cortex) is still developing, while our emotional regions (specifically the amygdala) are very active. This causes 'high risk taking' (ie, drug use and abuse) during the adolescent years. Using your your textbook and the op-ed, AS WELL AS, an outside credible source, what (if any) benefits or problems could this cause in other areas of development (physical, cognitive, socioemotional)? For your convenience, you can find the op-ed article HERE.

Answer 1

During the teenage years, the amygdala, which is the fear and emotions part of brain is overly active during this time which causes the adolescents to experience excess amounts anxiety and fear. Moreover the pre-frontal cortex is still developing at this time and is responsible for complex reasoning, planning, and behavioural inhibitions. So, a combination of this make teenagers susceptible to increased risk of mental illness during this time as the prefrontal cortex is not able to calmly reason and logically understand and control is fear response. Apart from this, teenagers may often get involved in accidents, murder and suicide. The benefit of this response is that during adolescents, as the teenager develops enhanced capacity for fear, and better memory for threatening stimulus, this proves to be an adaptive mechanism for survival, and provides a survival advantage.