Question

– Considering the development of the brain through the lifespan, contrast the way children, adolescents and adults make decisions? Be sure to address this question from a neurological standpoint.

Answer 1

Human development throughout the course of life is not because of changes in maturity or experiences but can also be attributed to the neurological advancement in the brain. The brain of a child is immature and is in the process of development and also unfolding of the dispositions one is born with. The processing of information by a child’s brain is very much limited because of the brains limited capacity. The synapses are still forming, the neurotransmitters keep on developing. There are various brain areas which are responsible for higher order mental capacities like problem solving, abstract thinking, engaging in cognitive control. Prefrontal cortex is the main brain area which is responsible for decision making. During childhood, prefrontal cortex is developing therefore, the children have limited abilities in regards to decision making.

The development of prefrontal cortex, during adolescence and adulthood, is believed to play an important role in the maturation of higher cognitive abilities, such as decision making. Many behavioral paradigms, together with fMRI, have assessed the neurobiological basis of these abilities, including flanker, Stroop effect, and go/no-go tasks. The results have collectively shown that children employ different but often larger and more diffuse prefrontal regions when performing these tasks than do adults. The patterns of brain activity that are important for task performance, such as those regions that correlate with cognitive performance, become more fine tuned with age. Regions that are not correlated with task performance diminish in activity with age. These results have been observed across both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Neuro-imaging studies cannot definitively characterize the mechanism of such developmental changes as dendritic arborization or synaptic pruning. However, these studies suggest that change over a period of time results in both refinement within brain regions as well as fine tuning of projections from these regions. Therefore, it may be concluded that there are differences in decision making abilities.