At the developmental time period of
adolescence, children start learning
more about what they like, dislike,
and how to fit in with their peers. This time in their
lives is heavily influenced by experimentation. This experimentation
may include the use of drugs and other illicit substances.
Their experimental phase with particular substances
may put them in harm's way and impact their developing brain.
This video aims to explain addiction in adolescents
as presented by the National Institutes of Health seminar on brain
development in adolescents and addiction risks and the use of digital phenotyping
to predict addictive behaviours.
So, let's learn more about the factors that contribute to addictive behaviours.
There are two main factors that contribute to addictive behaviors,
these include: biological and environmental factors.
Both factors influence how addictive behaviours
are formed in children at an early age.
Everyone has a unique biology,
their genes and physiological sensitivity to illicit substances
plays an important role in their risk of becoming addicted and using substances.
Your genetics contribute to a 40% to 60% risk of drug addiction
and depending on which developmental stage you are at,
the brain will react differently to exposures to different substances.
Drugs have the ability to exert long-lasting impacts
on the developing adolescent brain and can
increase an individual's vulnerability to addiction.
Secondly, the environmental factors, such as
low household income,
poor quality of education,
parental neglect,
and abuse can all lead to increased stress in the life of an adolescent.
This increased stress is known to contribute to
addictive behaviors and substance use disorders in adolescence.
Now,
let's focus on the effects of addiction on adolescent
brain development.
The brain is constantly developing from the fetal stage in
the mother's womb into your mid-20s.
The brain doesn't stop developing after your mid-20s,
but the speed and rate of brain development is the greatest
in the first two decades of life, and that speed
decreases later in life.
During the developing years of adolescence,
the brain develops and strengthens neural connections
through interactions in the environment.
Neurons send electrical signals with important information
from one area of your brain to another.
With increased interactions of the environment,
there are greater chances of discovering and learning
from mistakes that help form neural connections in your brain.
These neural connections in the brain occur at
different parts of the brain at different times of the developmental stage.
The areas of the somatosensory cortex
are fully developed in a 26 to 34 week old fetus.
Somatosensory cortex is responsible for processing sensory information,
such as touch,
temperature,
and pain.
This part develops early because the baby needs
to receive and process sensory information from their caregivers.
On the other hand,
the prefrontal cortex only fully develops at 25 years old,
which is much later than adolescence.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for planning,
personality development,
cognitive development,
and executive processes.
Due to later development of the prefrontal cortex, adolescence will show
increased risk-taking behaviors and addictive behaviors.
Brain development is also largely impacted by the environment
that a child grows up in.
A recent study investigated adverse childhood experiences
and illicit substance use.
The study revealed emotional,
physical, and sexual abuse,
emotional and physical neglect,
household dysfunction and household substance misuse
and untreated mental illnesses
to increase an adolescence an adolescence dependence on illicit substance use.
Additionally, social and emotional deprivation
also increases the risk of addictions among adolescents.
As a matter of fact,
social and emotional deprivation is one of the major reasons
for brain development hindrance and deprives neural connections.
A new emerging way to study addictive behaviours
is via digital phenotyping.
In the world where smart devices are all around us,
adolescents also have access to these devices.
Using smartphone devices is proving to be an effective way
to extrapolate the data about addictive behaviours.
Through digital phenotyping, you can collect information on
keystroke data
in which words
that are being used in text messages and social media posts,
are collected in real-time and 24/7.
A recent study conducted show that digital phenotyping has
the potential to predict relapse substance use after clinical interventions.
Machine learning showed 77% relapse prediction accuracy
via digital phenotyping.
Therefore, data from digital phenotyping
can allow clinicians and healthcare practitioners a way to understand
regional and community context around addictive behaviours.
They can also use digital phenotyping
to identify high-risk individuals that have been flagged for relapse
and send them motivational messages and recommendations
to sign up for follow-up appointments.
In conclusion,
addictive behaviours in adolescents occur
due to a combination of biological and environmental factors and
the use of digital phenotyping
can help us better understand their behavior
and improve adolescent quality of life.
We thank you for watching our video
and please don't forget to subscribe to our demystifying channel for more information.
The link for the full National Health Institutions Seminar has been provided in the description below!
Don't forget to check it out!