Adolescence and the Development of the Frontal Cortices
Linda Wilbrecht, PhD
Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of California, Berkeley
Adolescence is known to be a formative period in development and there is growing endorsement of an “adolescent sensitive period.” What does this really mean? While we know experience in adolescence can have a lasting impact on behavioral or brain function in adulthood, why is this so? In my talk, I will share what we have learned examining learning, spine pruning, puberty, maturation of inhibition and functional activity in the mouse adolescent frontal cortices. I then hope to engage in discussion of the idea that an adolescent sensitive period may exist in rodents for learning and decision-making (and fronto-basal ganglia circuit function) to support adaptive foraging behavior (Lin et al., 2020;2022).