“Pubertal and Neural Changes During Adolescence: Transactional Relationships with Social Development and Internalizing”
Hosted by the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Abstract: Scientists typically define adolescence as an extended life stage that starts with the onset of puberty and ends with acquisition of adult roles and responsibilities. This is also a period marked by protracted structural and functional brain development. Although most adolescents successfully navigate this period of manifold contemporaneous changes, it is also a time of peak risk for emergence of internalizing (i.e., mood and anxiety) disorders. In this talk, I will present evidence of associations between pubertal, neural, and social changes across the duration of adolescence that are related to internalizing. From this foundation, I will propose a theoretical model in which puberty launches a concert of neural and social changes that individually and together affect adolescent propensity for internalizing disorders, particularly for girls. Over time, these neural, social, and mental health processes interact in a transactional manner to mutually shape trajectories of risk or resilience.
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