A second extension is the application of this model beyond the study of risk-taking and into the realm of psychopathology more generally (Paus et al., 2008; Steinberg et al., 2006). As I noted earlier, and as several contributors to this issue describe, many forms of psychopathology onset or intensify during adolescence. Some, but not all, of these forms of psychopathology in one way or another involve appetitive or affective dysregulation (e.g., depression, substance abuse, eating disorders). This leads to the very reasonable hypothesis that at least some forms of adolescent psychopathology are related to abnormalities in the remodeling of the dopaminergic system at puberty (which would affect appetitive and affective functioning) or in the morphological changes of the prefrontal cortex or its connections to other brain regions over the course of adolescence (which would affect self-regulation).
