A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Brain structural correlates of risk-taking behavior and effects of peer influence in adolescents
Authors: Myoung Soo Kwon, Victor Vorobyev, Dagfinn Moe, Riitta Parkkola, Heikki Hämäläinen
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Publishing place: San Francisco, California
Publication year: 2014
Journal: PLoS ONE
Journal name in source: PLoS ONE
Journal acronym: PLoS One
Article number: e112780
Volume: 9
Issue: 11
Number of pages: 6
ISSN: 1932-6203
eISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112780
Web address : http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0112780
Adolescents are characterized by impulsive risky behavior, particularly in the presence of peers. We discriminated high and low risk-taking male adolescents aged 18-19 years by assessing their propensity for risky behavior and vulnerability to peer influence with personality tests, and compared structural differences in gray and white matter of the brain with voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), respectively. We also compared the brain structures according to the participants' actual risk-taking behavior in a simulated driving task with two different social conditions making up a peer competition situation. There was a discrepancy between the self-reported personality test results and risky driving behavior (running through an intersection with traffic lights turning yellow, chancing a collision with another vehicle). Comparison between high and low risk-taking adolescents according to personality test results revealed no significant difference in gray matter volume and white matter integrity. However, comparison according to actual risk-taking behavior during task performance revealed significantly higher white matter integrity in the high risk-taking group, suggesting that increased risky behavior during adolescence is not necessarily attributed to the immature brain as conventional wisdom says.
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