When it comes to risk taking, teens and young adults are the typical culprits. There are studies out there to show the negative effects of these tendencies, but what about the positives? What do these qualities bring to teens for them to have such frequency?

In a study published in the journal Neuron, neuroscientists have looked into the positive effects of the risk taking tendencies in teens. They have found that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps impulse control, isn’t fully developed. The striatum, however, is very active. When a teen finds pleasure in an activity, such as performing a trick on a skateboard successfully, their brain releases a hormone called dopamine and the striatum becomes more active.

“But the striatum isn’t just involved in reward-seeking. It’s also involved in learning from rewards,” said Daphna Shohamy, a cognitive neuroscientist at Columbia University.

With this in mind, she compared learning between teens and adults, specifically risk taking teens versus conscientious adults. She used an fMRI scanner to monitor both brain activities between the two groups, specifically the striatum and the hippocampus. The hippocampus helps with memorization including who, what, when, and where. Shohamy had the groups play a game that rewarded players for guessing correctly. Pictures of random objects were shown between each question and teens showed understanding of the game quicker than the adults.

The striatum were equally active in both teens and adults, but the hippocampus was more active for teens. To take this a step further, both groups were asked to recall the photos that they were shown in between questions and teens were more likely to remember the images than the adults.

Teen’s natural tendencies to risks vs rewards clearly aids in their learning in the right circumstances. This gives a clearer picture of teen behavior as it continually affects them in their growing lives. So next time you find yourself experimenting with the uneven odds of life, take a chance and it just might do you good in the long run.