16.4%). Although high conditional rates in younger adolescents may be partly attributable to the low unconditional prevalences, they nonetheless pinpoint early adolescence as a period of heightened risk for substance use and abuse.29,30 The elevated rate and risk of substance use and abuse among youth should be considered relative to neuroimaging data that demonstrate the occurrence of important maturational changes in the brain during adolescence, particularly in regions associated with regulatory control and decision making. Such normative developmental processes may be substantially compromised by substance use.31–35
