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    • We have said little about

    2018-11-13

    We have said little about sex differences, but as is evident in Fig. 2, there are gender differences in sensation seeking (Cross et al., 2011), which will have implications for different types of risk taking during adolescence. The correlation between sensation seeking and impulsive action is consistent with a smaller but established sex difference in measures of impulsive action (Cross et al., 2011), corresponding to the risk insensitive trajectory in our model in Fig. 5. This trajectory helps to explain the well-established over-representation of males in externalizing behavior, a pattern that begins early in development among youth with weak cognitive control (Bjork and Pardini, 2015; McGue and Iacono, 2005; Moffitt et al., 2011). On the other hand, the small relation between sensation seeking and decisions under known risk is consistent with the lack of sex differences in decisions under known risk (Cross et al., 2011). Nevertheless, the differences in sensation seeking would suggest that females are less inclined to engage in exploratory risk taking. However, many of the rewarding aspects of such behaviors are likely to be domain specific, such that young women may engage in exploration if they perceive the rewards to be sufficiently strong (Romer and Hennessy, 2007; Santos et al., 2016), for example in social domains (Weber et al., 2002). Future research should examine this possibility as well. Finally, much remains to be learned about the organization of RSNs during the transition to adulthood. It is already known that youth with ADHD have weaker ability to suppress the default mode network (DMN) than normally developing youth (Kessler et al., 2016; Posner et al., 2014). This is evident in stronger connectivity between the DMN and task-positive networks in youth with ADHD. Youth with externalizing disorder and elevated levels of impulsive action exhibit the same pattern (Inuggi et al., 2014; Kessler et al., 2014; Shannon et al., 2011). Future research could identify the neural basis of this deficit and explore potential interventions that could reduce it (Kelly and Castellanos, 2014; Stevens, 2016). These leads could be followed to determine the neural basis of harmful forms of impulsivity as opposed to exploratory forms of risk taking that emerge during adolescence. Research regarding the functional roles of RSNs as they respond to growth in experience and wisdom during the adolescent Volasertib would appear to be a fruitful avenue of future research. As more is learned about the growth of wisdom over the lifespan, it is also important not to overplay the wisdom of adulthood. Just as stereotypes regarding adolescence have colored our interpretation of brain research, it is just as easy to romanticize the experience and wisdom of adulthood. Research shows that relying on gist can lead to predictable biases even in experts (see Wilhelms et al., 2015). The increasing aversion to risk in ambiguous contexts may also lead to less than optimal search tendencies (Tymula et al., 2012). A good deal of research in decision making over the past several decades reveals how heuristics and biases common in adults can produce fallacies in judgment (Kahneman, 2013; Stanovich, 2011). This classic research serves as the foundation of more recent approaches, such as fuzzy-trace theory, that account for fallacies in adulthood but also explain the strengths of mature decision making (Defoe et al., 2014; Reyna et al., 2014). In conclusion, we have presented an alternative model of adolescent brain development that emphasizes the accumulation of experience as adolescents age and transition to adulthood, with concomitant changes in judgment and decision making (see Table 1 for a summary of differences between the Life-span Wisdom Model and Imbalance Models). The model explains much of the apparent increase in adolescent risk taking as an adaptive need to gain the experience required to assume adult roles and behaviors. The risk-taking that reflects lack of control or excessive sensitivity to immediate rewards is primarily an individual difference that characterizes some persons from an early age that can persist well into adulthood. At the same time, the adolescent brain is supremely sensitive to the learning that can occur during this period and has cognitive capacities to take advantage of the experience gained. The result is a brain with integrated circuits encompassing executive function (i.e., cognitive control and inhibition), as well as verbatim and gist memory networks, which can be called upon to negotiate both novel and familiar situations. The preservation of robust gist thinking maintains wise decision making during later adulthood when cognitive control capacities diminish. We believe this approach is more aligned with the scientific evidence, including results that challenge stereotypes about the adolescent brain.