The Reason Behind Teens' Risk-Taking Behaviors Revealed In Research

Why teens take risks? Scientifically speaking, it is because of imbalance activity between the brain's prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens, according to a new research from Dartmouth University. According to the researchers, the imbalance, which drives a teen's risk-taking behavior, appears to existence only during the adolescent period.

Youths are like cats: always curious of so many things. They always take risks to look for exciting and new ways to discover the world. That is a good thing, however if too much, this risk-taking behavior can be harmful, leading to risky driving, smoking, drugs etc., and the worst can kill them as the saying goes, 'curiosity kills the cat.' Now new research tries to find out the reason behind this behavior of teens.

The research suggests the teen's risk-taking behavior is due to uneven activity in the brain of teenagers. Researchers found out that there was a little activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex while a high activity occurred in the brain's nucleus accumbens. They also suggest that this only happens on adolescent period.

To come up with this discovery, the researchers utilized the Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs) in order to mimic this imbalance activity in fully-grown laboratory rats. With this approach, researchers were able to control the brain cells' activity remotely, turning some parts on and off.

The rats treated with the approach manifested a slow phase in the ability of the rats to learn to stop their behavior. David J. Bucci said that the imbalance created by altering the activity in these two brain regions produced a delay in the rats' ability to learn to inhibit their behavior. He added that pattern of results mimics what we observe in normal adolescent animals.

David Bucci, the senior author of the research, said that understanding how specific changes in brain function during development relate to behavior is critically important for determining why some individuals engage in excessive risk taking behavior during adolescence, according to the ScienceDaily. The report also noted that they hope that the findings of the study will inform new means to lessen the possibility for engaging in drug use and other harmful behaviors during this important period of growth.