Nature & Nurture #140: Dr. Beatriz Luna - Adolescent Brain Development, Dopamine, & Risk-Taking

Dr. Beatriz Luna is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where she directs the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development. Dr. Luna is an expert in adolescent brain development and the neurodevelopment of the dopamine reward system, and its interactions with inhibitory control to produce developmental changes in sensation seeking and risk-taking.  In this episode, we discuss Dr. Luna’s Driven Dual-Systems Model of adolescent-risk taking, adolescence as a sensitive period for neurocognitive development, and how the dopamine reward system changes with age and puberty. We discuss the role of hormones explaining sex differences in brain development, sensation seeking, and risk-taking, and their evolutionary origins and comparisons in other mammals. Lastly, we discuss translational implications of Dr. Luna’s work for understanding mental health, and findings from clinical endocrinology populations informing theories of how hormones influence brain development prenatally and during puberty.