@article{ref1,
title="Brain structural correlates of risk-taking behavior and effects of peer influence in adolescents",
journal="PLoS one",
year="2014",
author="Kwon, Myoung Soo and Vorobyev, Victor and Moe, Dagfinn and Parkkola, Riitta and Hämäläinen, Heikki",
volume="9",
number="11",
pages="e112780-e112780",
abstract="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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1932-6203",
doi="10.1371/journal.pone.0112780",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112780"
}