The Neuroscience Behind Risk-Taking in Adolescent Brains

Written By: Helena Xue

Abstract:

Adolescents between ten and twenty often experience increased risky behaviors that weren't previously present in childhood, and later disappear when reaching adulthood. These risky behaviors often damage the adolescent's well-being, and certain consequences carry later into their life. Studies show that upon reaching adolescence, changes in dopaminergic receptor distribution and density alter reward processing, causing adolescents to experience heightened reward sensitivity and an increased drive for novelty [2]. Additionally, with the presence of peers, an adolescent's risk-taking behavior increases, a pattern not seen in adults [1]. However, as the adolescent matures into adulthood, their frontoparietal system becomes fully developed, allowing the individual to gain more control over their impulses and decisions [4]. This paper argues that though increased risk-taking in adolescents is likely to be an unchangeable fact, an increase in adult supervision and targeted government policies can prevent negative consequences.

Introduction:

In this paper, the word ‘adults’ refers to anyone aged twenty-one and older, whereas adolescence loosely marks the ages between ten and twenty. This paper centers around the common sentiment that adolescents seem to take more risks than younger children and adults. These risks include, but are not limited to, drinking, smoking, reckless driving, intercourse, non-violent and even violent crime. Preventable, self-inflicted actions resulting from risk-taking behavior remain the leading causes of harm to the welfare of adolescents in developed countries, drawing attention to studies across the nation [10].

Misunderstandings and Risk:

Common beliefs about adolescent risk-taking include one or more of the following: adolescents reason about risk completely differently from adults, are less cautious and perceive less risk than adults, and are more likely to believe that they are invincible to certain risks. However, observations do not seem to support these statements [16]. Though adolescents seem equally rational and knowledgeable about risky activity as older adults, the fact that they engage in more risky behavior raises two points of consideration.

The first point that should be considered, given the false claims above, is figuring out the difference between adolescents and adults that accounts for the higher risk-taking behaviors in the former group. Simply put, we must understand what might be the change taking place when a child reaches adolescence that causes them to engage in riskier behavior, and why that risky behavior then diminishes as the adolescent reaches adulthood. The second point that should be considered is that educational approaches clearly won't work. Since adolescents don't lack the necessary information or decision-making skills, there must be a new approach to reducing adolescent risk-taking [11].

Background: Neuroscience Behind Risk-Taking

It is difficult to pinpoint the particular sections of the brain in charge of risk-taking, as the brain mingles the use of many regions just to perform a single decision, let alone a general type of decision. Despite this, a few common regions in the brain widely associated with and related to risk-taking are the dopaminergic system, prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala.

The dopaminergic system is a system in your brain that accelerates the need for risk-reward neural pathways. This system is only somewhat associated with pleasure or reward. More accurately, the dopaminergic system anticipates the idea of reward and releases dopamine [14]. That dopamine triggers and enhances the tendency to act in the direction of the idea of the reward. In animal research with macaque monkeys, when conditioned to expect a reward after a cue/button press, dopamine was released before the reward and spiked during anticipation [7]. However, during the act of getting the reward, dopamine levels dropped back down. Crucially, when the probability of reward delivery was set to 50%—introducing maximum uncertainty and risk—dopamine release skyrocketed [7]. Not only is the dopaminergic system about the anticipation of the reward, but adding a risk factor activates the system like nothing else.

The next region is the amygdala, which is commonly known to control fear. The amygdala is the first region to pull the alarm when something is threatening, out of usual, or simply during uncertain situations. Additionally, the amygdala—more specifically, the basolateral region of the amygdala—reacts to risk and reward stimuli and establishes reward associations and fear conditioning [6]. In rodent studies, when the basolateral amygdala in rats is silenced, the brain is significantly more likely to choose the risky choice [6]. The amygdala assesses the risk and reward factor, providing the brain with a natural fear of negative consequences, and with a reward association when there is one.

The final important region of the brain is the prefrontal cortex—the region in charge of making one do the difficult task when they know it is the better option. For instance, gratification control (like ignoring the tempting dopamine releases), amygdala control, long-term planning, analyzing consequences, etc. When dopamine starts getting released and the amygdala starts firing, the prefrontal cortex is the part that analyzes the situation to determine the risk and reward ratio, acting as the brakes to the more impulsive regions of the brain, like the dopamine system or amygdala [12].

Different Neurobiology from Childhood to Adolescence:

After childhood, as one begins adolescence, the child's dopaminergic system starts to remodel. Starting at around 9 or 10, the overall dopamine receptor density reduces in the prefrontal cortex (cortical) and striatum (subcortical), as the brain starts selecting only essential neural pathways (a process called pruning). Part of the receptors that get diminished are the inhibitory dopamine receptors found in the prefrontal cortex. These inhibitory receptors offer negative-feedback regulation during childhood, called a "buffering capacity", which essentially buffers the euphoria one gets after receiving a reward to a moderate amount. The diminished inhibitory control adolescents have over their dopamine release makes the feeling of reward seem even more rewarding. This causes an adolescent's risk-reward ratio to tilt heavily towards seeking reward rather than considering the risk. Therefore, as a child becomes an adolescent, dopamine inhibitory receptors diminish, and they have a higher reward salience.

It should be noted that findings on dopamine receptor reduction come primarily from non-human animal studies [14] [2]. Studies on animals show that even when an animal's gonadal and pubertal hormones like testosterone and estrogen get removed, their dopamine receptors still become diminished [14]. This allows us to believe that though certain behaviors coincide with puberty, they might not be because of puberty, but rather pre-programmed neurodevelopmental timers.

Peer Effects on Adolescent Risk-Taking:

During adolescence, risk-taking behavior peaks in certain social contexts, namely when peers are around. Research demonstrates that the presence of peers significantly increases risky behavior in adolescents compared to when the adolescent is alone, or not with a peer [9]. This pattern is not found in adults. Studies involving neuroimaging show that when adolescents realize peers are watching, activity in the regions of the brain involving reward-sensing, like the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, significantly spikes [5]. The spikes in these regions during peer presence increase socioemotional arousal, thereby lowering the threshold for risk-taking [17].

Different Neurobiology from Adolescents to Adulthood:

When adolescents become adults, their risk-taking behaviors often decline. A common and rather probable reason for this decline is because of the development in the frontoparietal control system. This system is formed mostly of 1) the lateral prefrontal cortex, which manages working memory, and intentional decision making, 2) the parietal association cortices, which integrate sensory information and track action plans, and 3) parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, which is responsible for detecting errors and signaling top-down control. Together, the frontoparietal control system governs the "higher-level cognition" of a human, like the ability for intentional decision-making, complex cognitive awareness, abstract reasoning, etc.

The difference between an adolescent's brain and that of an adult, is that, as the person ages, the frontoparietal system finally matures [8]. Not only does the maturation of the system increase an individual's rational, intentional reasoning, but it also has an impact on the prefrontal cortex. The frontoparietal system enhances the neural pathways between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, which is a major factor in giving the brain better control over emotion and cognition. The heavy influence of the development of the frontoparietal control system on an individual's behavior makes it the most likely reason for the decline in risk-taking behavior. The frontoparietal system allows individuals to self-regulate, control their emotions, and prevent the impulsive reward-seeking from taking over.

Implications for Adolescent Intervention:

As noted in the beginning of this paper, simply educating adolescents on risky activities is far from useful. According to a scientific study, "more than 90% of all American high school students have had sex, drug, and driver education in their schools, yet large proportions of them still have unsafe sex, binge drink, smoke cigarettes, and drive recklessly" [16]. Usually, the focus is on informing adolescents, making them wiser and more educated, but it has come to no avail. As repeated before, it seems that increased risk-taking during adolescence is a normal outcome resulting from biological changes, making the behavior somewhat inevitable. However, though it may be borderline impossible to change an adolescent's behavior, it can be argued that one can limit the negative consequences.

A variety of studies show that adolescents raised by authoritative parents are often less likely to fall into dangerous, risky behavior [15]. Though we do not know whether adolescents under these types of parenting are more mature and generally better at self-regulation, or rather simply unable to engage in risky behavior, it does raise an important consideration. All guardians should actively restrict their adolescents from potentially dangerous events, like going out with peers alone. This does not mean a guardian needs to completely limit their child's freedom, but rather it only requires the guardian to supervise the adolescent until their brain's frontoparietal system fully matures.

In addition to adult supervision, I propose adolescents should not be allowed to download social media apps on their smartphones. Social media is known to amplify peer pressure and heighten neural reward responses, activating dopamine circuitry in regions such as the ventral striatum and promoting riskier choices [13]. Though California already restricts adolescent drivers from carrying adolescent passengers, this law should be applied nationwide [3]. Applying this law reduces risky behavior stemming from peer pressure, and distractions that might cause preventable accidents.

To summarize, because of the heightened risk taking behavior in adolescents, government policies like banning social media apps for adolescents and restricting teen passengers for young drivers are needed to limit unnecessary and dangerous activity. Additionally, guardians should be aware of the increased likelihood for risk-taking behavior once their child reaches adolescence. Therefore, those guardians must be willing to supervise and monitor their child when needed.

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