ABSTRACT
Adolescence comprises a period of various developmental changes as individuals transition from childhood to adulthood. Cognitive features of adolescence include heightened reward sensitivity and underdeveloped cognitive control that contribute to risky behaviors, including escalating substance use. This chapter provides an overview of adolescent brain development and substance use behaviors. Primary focus concerns predictors and consequences of alcohol and cannabis use by adolescents, with a specific emphasis on the topics of neurocognition, as well as structural and functional brain measures. Secondarily, the chapter covers psychosocial and genetic contributors to substance use and the subsequent emergence of disordered use and other related psychopathologies. Prospective, longitudinal designs have greatly increased our knowledge of the complex relationship between adolescent brain development and substance use by teasing apart pre-existing vulnerabilities and consequential effects of substance use. Large, multi-site studies currently underway will help further disentangle the complicated picture of substance co-use, the interactive nature of psychopathology, demographic factors, health habits, and genetic vulnerabilities, among other important factors related to substance use. The overarching goal of this research is to inform early intervention and treatment of problematic substance use in adolescents.
