Collectively, these data suggest that although adolescents as a group are considered risk- takers 41, some adolescents will be more prone than others to engage in risky behaviors, putting them at potentially greater risk for negative outcomes. However, risk-taking can be quite adaptive in the right environments. So rather than trying to eliminate adolescent risk-taking behavior that has not been a successful enterprise to date 23, a more constructive strategy may be to provide access to risky and exciting activities (e.g., after school programs with in-door wall climbing) under controlled settings and limit harmful risk-taking opportunities. As the adolescent brain is a reflection of experiences, with these safe risk-taking opportunities, the teenager can shape long-term behavior by fine tuning the connections between top-down control regions and bottom-up drives with maturity of this circuitry. Other successful strategies are cognitive behavioral therapies which focus on refusal skills, or cognitive control, to reduce risky behaviors 127. The findings underscore the importance of considering individual variability when examining complex brain–behavior relationships related to risk-taking and impulsivity in developmental populations. Further, these individual and developmental differences may help explain vulnerability in some individuals to risk-taking associated with substance use, and ultimately, addiction.
