Why Teens Take Risks In Teens

It is shown in studies of the human brain that dopamine in released when that high is hit and that what makes people what to continue. “Dopamine is a compound present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including epinephrine.” People can begin to chase this feeling and want it again and again. It is shown that dopamine is released when someone does something good such as hit a homerun in baseball even when they make a big

What do you think when you hear the word “teenager”? Most people think of teenagers as pugnacious and restless human beings. Their rebellious and rambunctious behavior usually leads people to believe this. Teens tend to participate in jeopardous activities such as dangerous driving, binge-drinking, or fighting that could land them in serious trouble, the ER or the police station. Although engaging in these exercises is strongly frowned upon, some studies show that most of these actions cannot be controlled. Adolescents are drawn to risky acts due to specific messengers in the brain, peer pressure and their odd methods of apprehending the outcomes of a situation.

Of the six most common neurotransmitters, dopamine is probably the one people know the most about. Dopamine is involved in controlling the reward and pleasure system in the brain. It allows us to recognize rewards and helps give us the ability to go after them. Learning, behavior, and cognition are also affected by dopamine levels. As with anything, if you have an imbalance, then bad things can happen. Parkinson’s disease can be caused by low dopamine amounts. People who have low dopamine levels can be addicted to substances easier.

Teenagers. People find them to be crazy just by looking at the way they dress and act. In modern days, they dress with pop culture and most of the time, it’s provocative, but it is what all of their peers are wearing. They act in the craziest way, from “hooking up with strangers, [to] jumping from high places into shallow pools, [to] … steering a car with … [their] knees” (83) it is a wonder that they grow up to become “civilized, intelligent adults” (83). In Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Terrible Teens,” she asserts that teenagers take risks because of their brains. Teenagers are known for making impulsive decisions that may lead to tragic events. Kolbert believes that teenagers make rash decisions because their frontal lobes are immature, nucleus

The most common reason for this lies within the brain, the prefrontal cortex helps to determine the adaptive value of pleasure recorded by the nucleus accumbens, and weighs the risks and benefits of doing certain things (The addicted brain, 2009). The prefrontal cortex is like that voice in the back of your head that tells you not to do something if it is unwise; it is the judgment area of the brain. If the prefrontal cortex is not functioning properly, an addictive drug has more power to monopolize the reward circuit. Recent research shows that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed in adolescence, which could explain why we often develop addictions at that time of life. The addictive brain (2009) states, that “A person who does not become a smoker before age 21 will probably never be addicted to nicotine.” This research supports why children partake in risky behavior in their adolescences. Adolescences’ prefrontal cortex are not fully formed, therefore, they are unable to evaluate the risks and benefits of things they may do. The only thing they focus on, are the pleasurable rewards felt after completing the risky

Dopamine is commonly known as “The Reward Molecule.” It resides in the central nervous system and influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion. More specifically, dopamine is responsible for reward-driven behavior and pleasure seeking. “Every type of reward seeking behavior that has been

While the focus of ADHD pathophysiological research has been traditionally based on the catecholamine systems, it must be noted that ADHD is very complex and that further neurotransmitters should be explored beyond just dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine interacts with other neurotransmitters. A particular interest in nicotinic systems have stemmed from several sources, notably the observation of ADHD subjects who smoke (Durston, 2003). Potter and Newhouse reported improved behavioural inhibition in cognition performance based tests after administration of nicotine (Potter & Newhouse, 2004). It is known that nicotine increases the release of dopamine in striatal and mesolimbic dopaminergic pathways, and evidence given by Potter, Newhouse and Bucci potentially give a mechanism showing how nicotinic abnormalities influence dopaminergic functions, which may lead to new developments in effective treatment of ADHD symptoms (Potter & Newhouse, 2005).

It is dopamine that is involved in the pleasure centers of the brain where motivation, reward, the experience of pleasure, and motor function take place. Methamphetamine’s ability to release dopamine rapidly in reward regions of the brain produces the euphoric “rush” or “flash” that many users experience. Repeated methamphetamine use can easily lead to addiction—a chronic, relapsing disease characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use.

However recent research shows that the process is more complicated. Dopamine is not only related to pleasure but also to learning and memory, key components in going from liking a substance to becoming addicted to it. According to this theory it is believed that dopamine combines with another neurotransmitter, glutamate, to take over the brain’s system of reward related learning. This system plays an important role in sustaining life by linking such activities as eating and sex with pleasure and reward.

For instance, an excess of dopamine can cause schizophrenia and hallucinogenic drugs stimulate dopamine for it's main purpose as well as cocaine or adderall. Too much Dopamine can influence people to seek more adventurous lives, or too little can cause lack of motivation such as people with Parkinson's disease.

The initial indication of schizophrenia being a factor of dopamine was amphetamine consumers. Amphetamine causes several symptoms of schizophrenia including: delusions and hallucinations. In schizophrenics there is an unsteady, high amount of dopamine in the brain. Antipsychotic drugs work to lower the presence of dopamine on the brain by impeding dopamine receptors. There are two primary dopamine receptors, D1 and D2. In schizophrenic patients the latter is split into D2, D3 and D4 subtypes. Dopamine activators are found in the striatum, prefrontal cortex and limbic system of the brain. Clinical research has observed an increase of dopamine in the emotion controlling striatum through PET and SPECT brain scans. Unfortunately there is no one pinpointed cause of high dopamine levels. Many of these causes are: Agitation, anxiety, cognitive acuity, feeling of pleasure, hedonism, high energy, high libido, insomnia, paranoia and

Dopamine (DA) for many years has been understood to be a key neurotransmitter governing the reward response in regards to drug addiction. Dopamine is a catecholamine neurotransmitter which is known to act on five know types of receptors ranging from D1-D5, and is produced is multiple locations of the brain with DA release from the midbrain having a central role in reward and drug dependence (Kim, Inoue et al. 2007) . It has been found that DA levels rapidly change after substance abuse, in which levels of DA are up regulated after administration of a large array of drugs, including that of cocaine, which leads to eventual blunting of the DA levels after prolonged use and onset of the cocaine addiction. A study performed by Martinez and Narendran (2007) had found that individuals who were cocaine dependent had marked reductions in the D2 and D3 receptors binding sites available, with individuals who had more blunted receptors have a positive correlation in selecting a cocaine of a higher dosage. Within the same study it was also found that when subjects were offered a voucher of five dollars or cocaine with a street level less than five dollars, individuals with greater levels of dopamine deficits would still select the cocaine. Findings show the relationship and importance of dopamine and control of maladaptive behaviors related to addiction and inability to change behavior despite understanding

Throughout the article, the author discusses how adolescents are more likely to take risks than children or adults due to the brain. It’s not that teens don’t understand the consequences to their wild decisions, it’s just something teens tend to ignore while making them. Laurence Steinberg, a social neuroscientist quotes “Posit teens are more likely to indulge in risky business because of the way their brains are maturing.” Dramatic changes start to happen in our brains right around the start of puberty. This causes a huge difference in how the brain processes dopamine. Dopamine’s most important functions are motivation and reward but also mediates social and emotional behavior. Increased dopamine produces the desire to perform these behaviors. The brain starts to reduce the dopamine receptors in the

The [C]raclopride plays a role in determining the extracellular dopamine in the synapse. The theory of addiction is the idea that addictive drugs have a particular nature of releasing dopamine, while psychoactive non-addictive drugs do not. Alcohol and Cannabis have been demonstrated to lack certain qualities associated with inducing the release of dopamine in comparison to [C]cocaine. Figure 2 demonstrates an increase of dopamine levels in the ventral striatum which is produced by amphetamine and alcohol administration. In regards to [C]cocaine, there is a reduction in the radiotracer as a result of decreased expression of postsynaptic dopamine receptors. Alcohol dependent individuals demonstrated to have a decreased number of radiotracers, and cannabis detected almost no changes in the dopamine receptor availability. The article itself suggested that addiction is a complex mechanism that involves external factors such as environment, along with variation in drug reaction from person to person. It was suggested he it was unlikely that a single neurotransmitter could explain every aspect associated with addiction. The role of dopamine is concluded to have a central role in addiction to ‘stimulant drugs; which directly affect the dopamine system, but less so, in reference to mediating the addiction of other drugs – such as

“The overstimulation of this reward system, which normally responds to natural behaviors linked to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc.), produces euphoric effects in response to psychoactive drugs. This reaction sets in motion a reinforcing pattern that “teaches” people to repeat the rewarding behavior of abusing drugs ”(“Understanding Drug Abuse). Using addictive drugs floods the limbic brain with dopamine, taking it up to as much as five or ten times the normal level. A person with elevated dopamine levels now has a brain that begins to associate the substance with an outside neurochemical reward (“Your Brain on Drugs”). As a person continues to abuse drugs, the brain adapts to the overwhelming surges in dopamine by producing less dopamine or by reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the reward circuit. The result is a lessening of dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit, which reduces the abuser’s ability to enjoy the drugs, as well as the events in life that previously brought pleasure. The decrease in normal dopamine levels encourages the addict to keep abusing drugs in an attempt to bring the dopamine function back to normal, except now larger amounts of the drug are required to achieve the same dopamine high, an effect known as tolerance (“Understanding Drug Abuse ). That is what leads to the state of addiction, which leaves the person in a cycle of craving, using, withdrawal, and relapse.