 Hello, I am Dr. Trithika Agarwal, I am a Pediatric Consultant in an Adolescent Specialist Manipal Hospital, Sarjapur branch. So today we are going to talk about the neurodevelopmental changes that happen during Adolescent which are responsible for the different attitudes and behaviours that we see in Adolescent. Previously it was considered that the brain matures by the age of 18 but now most study shows that the brain keeps on maturing till the age of 25. So what typically happens is there is lot of reorganization which is happening in the brain. The synapses get pruned, synapses which are used more and often are hardwired into the brain and the synapses which are not used are lost. That is why the principle use it or lose it. There is rapid myelination of the brain which starts from the posterior part of the brain and goes to the front part of the brain. So the executive functions like planning, decision making and all this all happens later and the emotional and the reward center of the brain which is the limbic system it develops earlier. That is why there is an imbalance between the emotional center and the inhibitory center of the brain and this predisposes the adolescent to take lot of risk and novelty sensations seeking is there. Taking adolescence if they are taking drugs they get more addicted to it there are more chances of getting drug addictions. The reward circuitry in the brain gets hijacked if they take drugs. Drugs cause increased dopamine levels in the brain which causes a feeling of high or thrill or pleasure in the brain. Typically in boys we see that they can consume more amount of alcohol and they are more predisposed for taking risk while driving and hence get into accidents. For girls more behaviors towards nutrition are there. They do dieting and eating disorders happen. So here as parents we should just understand why they are behaving in this way. We have to understand the decision making and the planning is not that developed and the emotional center and the reward center is very much developed. That is why correct decision making sometimes will not happen. So we have to give them a nurturing environment give them a environment where they can grow and overlook what their activities are and look at their peers because they are very much influenced by their peers and do what the peers say. Thank you.