A number of hypotheses have been postulated for why adolescents may engage in impulsive and risky behaviors. Traditional accounts of adolescence suggest that it is a period of development associated with progressively greater efficiency of cognitive control capacities. This efficiency in cognitive control is described as dependent on maturation of the prefrontal cortex as evidenced by imaging 4–7 and post mortem studies8–10 showing continued structural and functional development of this region well into young adulthood.
