Adolescence is a period of life with biological, hormonal, and physical changes in puberty,

which ends at the age when one obtained stable role in society. This is a period of life where the

brain is particularly adaptable and malleable for learning and creativity. There are two brain

regions interacting to affect use of drugs:

1. Prefrontal cortex: high level cognitive functions in decision making, planning, inhibiting

inappropriate behavior, social interaction, and self-awareness. There is a medial

prefrontal cortex in the middle of prefrontal cortex in the midline of the head, which is

more active in adolescents when they make social decisions and think about other people

and decreases into adulthood. Experience has shown that things learned related to

applying the rules has been fully developed by mid-adolescence. The ability to take into

account someone else’s perspective as guidance is still developing in mid-to-late

adolescence. So, teenage takes risks without embarrassment, sometimes moody, and very

self-conscious. They are more prone to take risks with friends to become independent

from parents and to impress friends. The tendency to stop taking excessive risks is still

very much in development in adolescents.

2. Limbic System: deep inside the brain. It involves in emotion processing and reward

processing. It gives the rewarding feeling for doing fun things such as taking risks. The

regions within the limbic system have been found to be hypersensitive to the rewarding

feeling of risk-taking in adolescents compared with adults.

Hormonal surges, hyped reward center of limbic system, and underdeveloped cognitive

regulation of prefrontal cortex has caused drug use and risky behavior in teenagers. Drugs
interact with neurochemistry of the brain to produce euphoria and feel good. Drug usage may be

an attempt to lessen feelings of distress which plays a significant role in starting and continuing

drug usage as well as relapsing of recovering. Adolescents are motivated to seek new

experiences or taking risks, or trying to improve athletically or academically via using drugs.

Some variation includes:

Age: Drug usage has become widespread for people of age 10 to 25 and then decreases due to

maturity or life responsibilities. Drug usage before age 18 best predicts later drug usage.

Place: Different rates of adolescent drug use in nations partly due to differing laws.

Generation: Adolescence drug use has decreased in the U.S since 1976 probably due to greater

effect of adolescent culture. Most adolescents in the U.S. have experimented with drug use and

that they could find illegal drugs if tried. Most U.S. adolescents are not regular drug users and

20% never use any drugs with rates vary from state to state.

Gender: In adolescent boys generally use more drugs and more often. Social constructions

reinforce proper male and female behavior such as smoking as a real man or to be accepted in a

social circle.