Neurobiology of Adolescent Behavior

This article delves into the neurobiological basis of adolescent behavior, focusing on the development of the prefrontal cortex and its impact on decision-making and self-regulation. It explores concepts such as neuro-circuitry and neuronal plasticity, sensation-seeking behavior, and trajectories of adolescent neurodevelopment. The article also discusses how these concepts can be applied in educational settings to enhance learning and promote self-regulation.

RUNNING HEAD: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Adolescent Brain Behavior........................................................................................................2
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................2
2. Neurobiology of Adolescent Behaviour.............................................................................3
3. The Neurobiological Control..............................................................................................4
4. Self-regulation in adolescent behavior...............................................................................5
5. Concepts in Adolescent brain behavior:.............................................................................6
Concept 1: Neuro-circuitry and Neuronal plasticity helps in adolescent brain modeling.....6
Application of Concept 1 in Education settings.....................................................................6
Concept 2: Neuro-behavior of adolescents as a ‘Sensation seeking’ behavior......................7
Application of Concept 2 in Education settings.....................................................................7
Concept 3: Trajectories of adolescent neurodevelopment of neuronal circuitry important
for decision computations......................................................................................................8
Application of Concept 3 in an Educational setting...............................................................9

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Adolescent Brain Behavior
1. Introduction
Many parents of children never understand why their teen sons or daughters at times
and very suddenly almost - behave in a very impulsive, illogical or even in life threatening
ways. Occasionally, it appears from outside that these teens take decisions without thinking
of the future circumstances. Adolescent’s behaviours (Kelder et al., 1994) differ from that of
adults in such a way that they solve problems, think, make decisions in the completely other
way. There exists many biological analyses, hypothesis and evidence based explanations for
the mentioned difference. Reports have shown - human brains continue to keep maturing and
to develop through and throughout childhood and even throughout adolescence (Moffitt,
2017). before entering an early adulthood. Many scientists have often identified a very
particular region present in the brain known as amygdala which is actually responsible for a
set of behavioural reactions like fear and aggression. The amygdala (Goetschius, 2019)
develops earlier and then the frontal cortex develops which is the region of brain that
modulates ‘reasoning’, logical flow of thoughts (Moshman, & Tarricone, 2016) assisting an
individual to think before reacting or acting to a stimulus. This is the part of brain that keeps
transforming and maturing into adulthood. Other brain changes during the adolescent
stage(Lynch, 2018) include a spontaneous increase in connections of neurons between brain
cells. This makes the brain pathways much more effective. Myelin which is an insulating
biological layer, helping in fast transmission of impulses, develops around the nerve cells. All
these neuronal changes are very essential for development of the coordinated thought,
behaviour and action.
Reports have shown that the brains of adolescents work very differently from that of
adults when they are taking decisions or even solving problems. Their behavioural actions are

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driven more by emotional mechanisms rather than thoughtful and logical interplays.
Researches have shown that drugs, alcohol exposure during this phase can actually modify or
delay cognitive developments. Adolescents are definitely prone to act impulsively, more
likely to have logical fallacies, thus misinterpreting social cues. They also misinterpret other
people’s emotions, tend to exhibit accidental behaviours, becomes more violent and engage
in dangerous substance abuse practices.
These neurobiological differences make the adolescents very prone to a lot of things
but this does not implies in any way that with proper guidance and support, they cannot take
good decisions. They still know the difference between the bad and the good, it is just that
they are more prone to adverse things and there is certain psychology playing behind it. The
parents, advocates, teachers and even the policy makers should be aware of this
morphological change in the brain that display these behaviours in order to manage them
properly.
2. Neurobiology of Adolescent Behaviour
Adolescence is the transitional phase of cognitive development where occurs many
changes including physical maturation, the independence drive, choice of social or peer group
and interaction and the brain keep modulating its behavioural functions. There can be
problems like alcohol and other substance abuse, criminal acts and even torturous or
unprotected sex. In order to understand the neurological basis of these exhibited risky
behaviours – identifying the emotional driving factors is critical.
There had been a number of different hypotheses that had been proposed on why and
adolescents can engage in such risky and impulsive behaviours(Patros, 2016). The idea is that
there is a sudden and drastic increase – a spurt in the cognitive control capabilities( Crone &
Steinbeis, 2017) that often becomes uncontrollable in form of produced behaviours. This very

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efficiency in the cognitive control is dependent on the maturation of prefrontal cortex but
amygdala continues to control the outcome in adolescence.
This improved or enhanced cognitive control along with the development of
prefrontal cortex is very consistent with the linear increase in control abilities compared to
childhood. If it is considered that the cognitive control with a still maturing prefrontal cortex
is the only reason for making decisions alone, then adolescent should behave more
‘immaturely’ than adults and there is no wrong in it.
3. The Neurobiological Control
A neurobiology of adolescent behavior and development is as complex. The
subcortical with the prefrontal regions are considered as a very functional circuit in
adolescence. There are various trajectories that signal through these regions. The limbic
projections keep developing at a faster rate than prefrontal regions. The behavioral control in
the adolescents is often biased by the functionally mature limbic and subcortical regions as
compared to the higher cortex. The frontal -limbic circuitry (Cha et al., 2016) has been seen
to be more mature in adolescents as compared children but it is less developed that adults.
With development and the experience, these functional connections are well strengthened,
thus providing a mechanism for modulation of subcortical systems (Herting, 2018). These
entire set of biological changes and transformations explain the nature of ‘impulsive’
behavior displayed by an adolescent.
Frontal striatal circuits then undergo an elaboration and expansion during the
adolescence stage which is very dramatic perhaps for the dopaminergic system (Bloomfield,
2016) Increase in dopamine receptors, D2 and D1 inside the striatum (Telzer, 2016)starts
very early in adolescence. This is followed by a reduction of dopaminergic receptors by the
time one reaches young adulthood. The prefrontal cortex in adolescence though, does not

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exhibit any peaks in D2 and D1 receptor density before it reaches young adulthood. These
developmental changes are prominent in reward systems and freedom seeking behaviors
associated with cannabinoid receptors (da Silva, 2016). Dopamine systems have been also
reported to control motivated behaviors with reward sensitivity (Davidow, 2016). However,
this dramatic alteration in the dopamine circuit during adolescence determines the level of
behavioral sensitivity. Beyond these significant changes involving dopamine receptors, there
are accompanying hormonal changes that leads to sexual maturity and other form of
behaviors whose feedback ‘loops’ the circuit changes pertinently.
4. Self-regulation in adolescent behavior
Self-regulation is about managing one’s own motivation and emotions. It involves
modulating and driving own behaviour to meet challenges of everyday life with precision and
control. Self-regulation as a matter of fact also entails the control in expression of violent
emotions, then activation of an impulse control followed by delayed and controlled
gratification. Adolescents, as they progress to adulthood with a physical body and mental
embodiment more mature – they are equipped with the ‘necessary tools’ to handle the world
around. While the early adolescent phase impends more risky set of behaviours, the late
adolescence displays more accurate and controlled, unbiased range of behaviours for the
prefrontal cortex has grown more by now.
The behavioural control techniques require a huge involvement from the cognitive,
executive parts of brain. These behavioural functions are localized in prefrontal cortex that
matures during and after puberty. During adolescence, the adolescents must not be
overprotected but be guided, allowing them to make mistakes and learn from experiences.
Guidance of peers, parents, teachers and seniors involves a stimulation towards an experience
during adolescence that promotes self-regulation.

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5. Concepts in Adolescent brain behavior:
Concept 1: Neuro-circuitry and Neuronal plasticity helps in adolescent brain
modeling
“Plasticity” refers to the neuronal changes that might occur during new skill set
acquisition. These skills start the elaboration process, stabilizing the synaptic circuitry as a
learning process. Neuroplasticity (Yao, Petralia & Mattson, 2016) allows the adolescents to
adapt and learn quicker but plasticity also elevates an individual’s improper decision making
behavior if a wrong learning seeps in accidentally. The neuronal circuitry can be refined,
strengthened or even damaged during plasticity. Hence neuronal proliferation along with
rewiring, environmental exposure and dendritic pruning are crucial components of the brain
plasticity during the period of adolescence.
A significant phase in adolescence involves brain development and plasticity to
strengthen and activate active learning and relearning behaviors until it is consolidated. These
plasticity changes occur in the cerebellum, brain stem, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, frontal
lobe and also temporal lobe. Human frontal lobe control movement control, spontaneity,
problem solving, memory, initiation, language, judgment, social, impulse control and sexual
behavior. Prefrontal cortex has been reported to elicit a drug-seeking behavior (Hanlon et al.,
2016) but it remains under consolidation, reconstruction, maturation during the period of
adolescence.
Application of Concept 2 in Education settings
Neuroplasticity as it wires, rewires, constructs, deconstructs, forms and reforms the
connections in the neurons of cortex and limbic system – can be stimulated further by the
school environments to facilitate more effective learning. This can be made by making

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adolescent students learning experiential by incorporation of audio, video teaching technique
as well as by designing innovate course-works that promotes self-reflection and mindfulness.
Concept 2: Neuro-behavior of adolescents as a ‘Sensation seeking’ behavior
Neurobiological study shows that nucleus accumbens (Manduca et al., 2016) which is
a part of brain’s reward related system that is located in limbic system – is the area that seeks
freedom and relates to reward seeking. Magnetic resonance imaging has shown nucleus
accumbens to very sensitive in the adolescents that sends out certain impulses to react,
respond and act sensibly when something desirable is the outcome. Adolescents are very
vulnerable to the intake nicotine, drug and alcohol because their limbic region which controls
motivation and feelings are not truly developed during adolescence.
During the stage of puberty, estrogen, testosterone increases that bind to receptors in
limbic system, resulting in sexual drive but it also elevates the emotional volatility in addition
to impulsivity. Modulation in the reward regions of brain which occur during the puberty are
being studied as well. These morphological change decreases the dopaminergic receptors
which are meant for pleasure seeking. This is why adolescents sometimes need increased
levels of dopamine stimulation to relate and acquire same intensity of reward leading them to
risky choices.
Application of Concept 2 in Education settings
As this concept focuses on a reward seeking behavior, hence it makes it particularly
important for the educationists to incorporate this ‘neurobiological’ concept into their study
environments. Class room activities, intra school and college competitions that promote a
parallel creative learning of the same contextual and abstract concepts taught from textbooks
but in an much entertaining way – should be used more often for increasing the adolescent

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student’s learning behavior through stimulation of the ‘reward seeking’ cognitive interplay
even more by attracting them to interesting prizes.
Concept 3: Trajectories of adolescent neurodevelopment of neuronal circuitry
important for decision computations
The overall size, more or less organization of human brain is almost very similar in
adults and adolescents. The dynamic changes in function and structure of brain is related to
the neuro-modulation. Structural MRI studies have shown various developmentally
reductions in the grey matter volumes across the phase of adolescence which can reflect on
experience-dependent pruning processes. Lag in structural development of prefrontal cortex
(Caballero, Granberg & Tseng, 2016) that too particularly in dorsolateral regions is linked to
behaviour control in adolescence. This includes impulse control improvement and
enhancement in working memory and abilities such as complex reasoning. Late development
of the prefrontal cortex controls the components that are responsible for decision-making
which in turn rely on integration of complex information both from stimulus and memory.
Dopaminergic signalling mechanisms exhibit certain properties that involve
adolescent-specific behaviours. Structurally, D2 and D1 receptors proliferation in the
dopamine system that prune about 50% of the receptors from adolescence to the adulthood is
paired with the peaking dopamine concentrations. The corresponding studies regarding
adolescent brain using f-MRI have shown that adolescent-specific aggressive and
exaggerative behaviours is related to some form of gratification or pleasure and dopaminergic
signalling to ventral striatum is the key process of its exhibition.
The developmental asymmetries which are often observed in the striatal and
prefrontal signalling have revealed theoretical frameworks that describe an adolescent’s

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behaviour as reflective staggered trajectories in stages of neurodevelopment. While the
striatum of adolescents exhibits an exaggerated sort of response to a given stimulus – the
prefrontal cortex that decreases the DA receptors controls the response inversely. Additional
findings in neurobiological studies have suggested that the neural signals which reflect the
elicited arousal is a key factor in exhibition of adolescent-specific activity shifts. Such form
of developmental neuronal circuitry can manifest itself behaviourally in very robust and
incentive motivation, towards reward reactivity, towards sensation seeking behaviour along
with an on-going development of executive control loops. The neurological development is
very parallel and often very crisscrossed with the psychological development until they find a
way to coexist learning each other’s mechanisms and these staggered trajectories of
neurodevelopment can influence the multiple neuron driven processes in decision-making.
Application of Concept 3 in an Educational setting
As the decision making processes in adolescents are more driven by impulses in
adolescence – the same mechanism can be used ‘educationally’ in schools and instructional
designs to facilitate learning. This can be perhaps done by incorporation of philosophical,
scientific and literature story topics in the academic syllabuses that help to control the
‘emotions’ flowing in and out of adolescent students through exemplary portrayal of
inspirational characters and persuasive story telling techniques.

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