The Adolescent Brain – Wired for Taking Risks
‘The Adolescent Brain – Wired for Taking Risks’ is a briefing paper from Mentor ADEPIS and forms part of a series of such resources on drug and alcohol education and prevention for teachers and practitioners. It takes a look at the role that the brain plays in risk-taking behaviours, including substance abuse, during adolescence. The paper also considers possible ways for mitigating such behaviours and their related harms among young people. It highlights the fact that people who take risks not only put themselves in danger, but often put others in danger too. Hence, the paper argues that preventing risk-taking behaviours among adolescents is an ‘essential public health issue’. In this way, it sees the reduction of such behaviours as a key goal for those working in prevention and outlines a number of implications for intervention programmes.
‘The Adolescent Brain – Wired for Taking Risks’ should be read alongside ‘Window on the Developing Brain’, both of which appear in the mini-series on the ‘Brain under Construction’.