Summary
Summary of all lectures and readings for Risk Behavior and Addiction in Adolescence
- Course
- Institution
Summary of all readings and lectures for Risk Behavior and Addiction 2024. I got an 8.5 just revising these summaries.
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
jliajoan
Content preview
Lecture 1. Introduction Risk Behavior and Addiction inAdolescence
Risk behaviors: Behaviors that pose a risk to a healthy physical, cognitive, psychosocial
development of adolescents
Contact with a substance → Experimenting with a substance → Integrated use → Excessive
use → Addicted use
We classify risk behaviors depending on..
-Characteristics of the particular substance or behavior. For Instance, smoking/vaping
versus gaming
-Cultural and societal norms. Example: alcohol use in Western versus Islamic Cultures
-Scientific knowledge. Example: knowledge on the risks of alcohol use for the cognitive
development of adolescents
● Early adolescence (aged 10 – 14): physical growth, sexual maturation,
psychosocial development, social identity formation
● Mid adolescence (aged 15 – 17): experimenting with (risk) behaviours, personal
identity formation
● Late adolescence (aged 18 – 24): practicing adult roles
Neurological development in adolescence
1. Strong grow in brain volume: increase in white matter (connections, myelinization), but
decrease in gray matter (nerve cells)
Pruning: if you don’t use it, you lose it!
Boys have more gray matter volume than girls. Frontal gray matter volume peaks around
puberty and then decreases in both girls and boys.
2. High plasticity and flexibility of the brain
3. Increase in white matter: communication between brain regions strongly improves
- Long term memory increases
- Capacity for abstract (critical) thinking and metacognition increases
,Why is there a peak in risk behavior during adolescence?
The speed of the development of two different brain regions differs
(1) The affective-motivational system (emotional brain) develops fast
(2) The control system (rational brain) develops slowly
1. The affective-motivational system. Emotional brain. Hot system.
- Nucleus accumbens: reward center.
- It’s overactive during early and mid adolescence.
- Adolescents experience stronger positive emotions than adults when they receive or
anticipate a reward. This process is enhanced by testosterone
- Bottom-up processes. Behavioral activation (BAS)
2. The control system. Rational brain. Cold system.
- Prefrontal cortex.
- The rational brain develops slowly (until about 25 years)
- Plays an important role in the development of executive functions:
● Risk estimation
● Monitoring long-term goals
● Inhibit the tendency to respond to (short-term) possibilities for reward (impulse
control, behavioral inhibition, self control)
- Top-down processes. Behavior inhibition (BIS)
The maturational imbalance model (Casey)
→ Increased risk-taking during adolescence is a result of an imbalance between reward
sensitivity (the affective- motivational system) and impulse control (control system)
Psychoactive substances are chemical substances that cross the blood-brain barrier and
affect the function of the central nervous system thereby altering perception, mood, or
consciousness (e.g., high/euphoria, relaxation)
-They often induce craving after (regular) use
-They often evoke loss of control after they have been used (regularly)
They differ in:
* Type and strength of the psychoactive effect (their effect)
* The degree to which they elicit craving and loss of control. (their addictiveness)
,For which substance is the risk highest to develop addiction after one has used the
substance?
How can we define addiction?
-Intensional: these definitions aim to describe a causal addiction process (see Sussman,
Table 1.2)
-Extensional: a classification of characteristics of an addiction (e.g. DSM-5)
, Two learning principles underlying the development of addiction:
1. Positive reinforcement occurs when the rate of a behavior increases because a desirable
experience (e.g., euphoria, relaxation) is resulting from the behavior.
2. Negative reinforcement occurs when the rate of a behavior increases because an
aversive experience is prevented from happening (e.g., withdrawal symptoms).
Drug use → Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens → Reward
ok I
ok I→ Brain adaptation
ok (the sensitivity of the reward system decreases)
This decrease in the sensitivity of the brain reward system results from...
- Reduction in the number of dopamine receptors
- The existing dopamine receptors become less sensitive to dopamine
Resulting in...
1. Tolerance (needing a higherdoseofthedrugto have the same effect)
2. Withdrawal symptoms (during abstinence)
3. A reduced sensitivity to natural incentives
- Reduced sexual interest in cocaine users
Associative learning
1. Drug use is having rewarding outcomes (=positive reinforcement)
2. Stimuli related to drug use (drug-cues: bar, group of friends…) also get associated with its’
rewarding outcomes
3. Drug-cues themselves become salient because of its association with reward (incentive
salience)
It’s leading to 2 (implicit) cognitive biases
- Attentional bias: individuals with addictive behaviors develop an (automatic)
heightened attention towards drug-cues.
- Approach bias: individuals with addictive behaviors develop an automatic tendency to
approach, rather than avoid, drug-cues.
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller jliajoan. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $11.20. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
48756 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 15 years now