Risky Teen Behavior Is Driven by an Imbalance in Brain Development

A mismatch in the maturation of brain networks leaves adolescents open to risky behavior but also allows for leaps in cognition and adaptability

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is often ridiculed as an oxymoron—an example of biology gone wrong.

Neuroscientists have explained the risky, aggressive or just plain baffling behavior of teenagers as the product of a brain that is somehow compromised. Groundbreaking research in the past 10 years, however, shows that this view is wrong. The teen brain is not defective. It is not a half-baked adult brain, either. It has been forged by evolution to function differently from that of a child or an adult.

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