Comparing personality constructs of risk-taking behavior

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

2000

4,693

110

4,301

To successfully negotiate the developmental transition between youth and adulthood, adolescents must maneuver this often stressful period while acquiring skills necessary for independence. Certain behavioral features, including age-related increases in social behavior and risk-taking/novelty-seeking, are common among adolescents of diverse mammalian species and may aid in this process. Reduced positive incentive values from stimuli may lead adolescents to pursue new appetitive reinforcers through drug use and other risk-taking behaviors, with their relative insensitivity to drugs supporting comparatively greater per occasion use. Pubertal increases in gonadal hormones are a hallmark of adolescence, although there is little evidence for a simple association of these hormones with behavioral change during adolescence. Prominent developmental transformations are seen in prefrontal cortex and limbic brain regions of adolescents across a variety of species, alterations that include an apparent shift in the balance between mesocortical and mesolimbic dopamine systems. Developmental changes in these stressor-sensitive regions, which are critical for attributing incentive salience to drugs and other stimuli, likely contribute to the unique characteristics of adolescence. ᭧

Section: Risk Takingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

2000

4,693

110

4,301

“…As discussed later, the brain of the adolescent also undergoes pronounced sculpting and modification. Adolescence is likewise characterized by expression of a number of typical behavioral features, such as increased novelty seeking and risk taking (Irwin, 1989;Trimpop et al, 1999) and a shift in social affiliation towards more peer-based social interactions (La Greca et al, 2001). It is during adolescence as well that many individuals begin experimenting with alcohol and other drugs.…”

Section: Adolescence: Ontogeny Phylogeny and The Use Of Animal Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of adolescent neurotoxicity: Rationale and methodological considerations

Neurotoxicology and Teratology

2007

103

106

This introduction to the special issue of Neurotoxicology and Teratology on "Risk of neurobehavioral toxicity in adolescence" begins by broadly considering the ontogeny and phylogeny of adolescence, and the potential value of animal models of adolescence. Major findings from the emerging neuroscience of adolescence are then highlighted to establish the importance of studies of adolescent neurotoxicity. A variety of methodological issues that are of particular relevance to adolescent exposures are then discussed. These include consideration of pharmacokinetic factors, inclusion of other-aged comparison group(s), and issues involving timing, route of administration, and exposureinduced alterations in growth rate. Despite such methodological challenges, research to determine whether adolescence is a time of increased vulnerability (or greater resiliency) to specific drugs and environmental toxicants is progressing rapidly, as exemplified by the work presented in the articles of this special issue. Keywordsadolescence; neurotoxicity; behavior; animal models; brain sculpting; pharmacokinetics; drug metabolism; body weight; methodology Most of what we know about neural and behavioral consequences of developmental exposure to drugs and other chemicals is based on exposures during the prenatal and early postnatal period, with little emphasis on exposure periods that subsume adolescence. With the increasing recognition that adolescence is a time of considerable neural restructuring and sculpting of the brain (for review, see Spear, 2000), there likewise has been a growing interest in assessing whether this developmental transition is a vulnerable period for neurotoxicity. This special issue is designed to highlight research examining "the question of whether adolescence is a…. (time) of enhanced neurobehavioral toxic risk associated with exposure to drugs of abuse, therapeutic drugs, hormones and environmental toxicants." By presenting examples of the emerging research in this area, the goal of the special issue is to encourage additional high quality work in this area, and to draw attention to Neurotoxicology and Teratology as an outlet for this research.

“…Adolescence is also associated with a major growth spurt that is associated in part with elevated release of growth hormone as well as often notable increases in food intake (Post & Kemper, 1993). At least as dramatic as these transformations in body appearance are the marked physiological transformations that occur within the brain of the adolescent, along with the emergence of a variety of adolescent-typical behaviors that include increases in peer-directed social interactions (LaGreca, Prinstein, & Fetter, 2001) and elevated novelty-seeking and risk-taking (Irwin, 1989;Trimpop, Kerr, & Kirkcaldy, 1999). Interestingly, similar physiological transitions and adolescent-typical behavioral characteristics are evident among adolescents across a variety of mammalian species, findings consistent with the notion that adolescence has been a highly conserved developmental stage during the process of evolution (SavinWilliams & Weisfeld, 1989), and leading credence to the utility of animal models to study certain aspects of adolescence (see Spear, 2000, for review).…”

Section: Adolescence: Differential Alcohol Sensitivities and Intakementioning

confidence: 99%

The International Society for Developmental Psychobiology 39th Annual Meeting Symposium: Alcohol and Development: Beyond fetal alcohol syndrome

Molina

Developmental Psychobiology

et al. 2007

As has been repeatedly demonstrated, alcohol can exert deleterious morphological and physiological effects during early stages in development. The present review examines nonteratological links existing between alcohol and ontogeny. Human and animal studies are taken into consideration for the analysis of fetal, neonatal, infantile, adolescent, and adult responsiveness to the drug. Sensitivity to alcohol's chemosensory and postabsorptive properties, as well as learning and memory processes mediated by such properties, are examined from this developmental perspective. The studies under discussion indicate that, within each stage in development, we can trace alcohol-related experiences capable of determining or modulating alcohol seeking and intake patterns.