University Video Description from UCLA: Twelfth Jeffrey Lecture on Cognitive Neuroscience
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at the UCLA Faculty Center
The Myths of Adolescence and Recent Evidence from Neuroscience
BJ Casey, Ph.D.
Director of the Sackler Institute and Neuroscience Graduate Program
Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and Neuroscience
Weill Cornell Medical College

Negotiating the transition from dependence on parents to relative independence is not a unique demand for today’s youth, but has a long evolutionary history and is shared across mammalian species. Yet behavioral changes observed during this period are often described as “delinquent” or reflecting cognitive “deficits”. This lecture will review empirical studies showing changes in explorative and emotive behaviors during the transition into and out of adolescence and their neurobiological correlates in the context of both adaptive and maladaptive functions.