Biology of Humans 6th Edition by Judith Goodenough,Betty McGuire

Exercise 17

Beatriz Luna, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, is doing research on the structure and function of the teenage brain. She uses structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the structural changes in the human brain during development and functional MRI to determine the parts of the brain that are active while a person performs specific tasks. Dr. Luna discussed her research during a panel discussion at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in February 2015. The following are excerpts from a new story about that panel discussion.1 "In the experiments, volunteers are instructed to immediately look away from a small light that randomly appears on a screen in front of them. This 'anti-saccade' test shows if the brain is able to engage the planning centers of the prefrontal cortex to overcome the impulse to look toward the light rather than away from it. Dr. Luna's team has found in previous studies that children succeed in about half their tries, teens in about 70 percent of tries and adults in about 90 percent of tries. People with mental illnesses typically struggle with the task. The study team had volunteers do the same tasks while scanning their brains with functional MRI. They found that much of the architecture of mature brain is in place by adolescence, but the ability of the networks to talk to one another and integrate information is still a work in progress." Dr. Luna is cited, saying, "Our studies are beginning to challenge the traditional concept that the teenage brain can't plan because of an immature prefrontal cortex. Our findings indicate that the teen prefrontal cortex is not much different than in the adult, but it can be easily overruled by heightened motivation centers in the brain. You have this mixture of newly gained executive control plus extra reward that is pulling the teenager toward immediate gratification." The summary of the article states, "Teenage exploration and risk taking could be explained by dramatic brain changes that allow planning and encourage the need for immediate reward, according to a neuroscientist."
Do the results of an experiment showing that adults are better than teenagers at moving their eyes away from a randomly appearing light explain risk taking by teenagers