ABSTRACT

Recent advances in neuroimaging describe adolescent brain development as a period marked by significant changes in anatomy, function, behavior and cognition. The brain, during adolescence, consolidates several higher order processing milestones, including the attainment of formal operational learning and emotional and memory processing with neuroanatomical and metabolic correlates. While these attainments are important in the emergence of adult cognitive styles, adolescence is a vulnerable phase for physiological insult and dysfunction of cognitive and neurobiological systems that may result in mental disorders, or, more commonly, inappropriate impulsive or risk-taking behaviors such as substance abuse and aggression.