Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

active has blood with more oxygen than an area of the brain that is inactive.
According to Casey et al. (2008) risk-taking in adolescence is the result of the
differential development of the subcortical bottom-up limbic reward systems
and the top-down control systems that are mainly located in the PFC. Limbic
system is a word that sometimes is used to denote subcortical areas that
among others play a role in experiencing negative emotions (the amygdala),
feelings of anticipated pleasure (the nucleus accumbens), motivation (the
gyrus cinguli anterior), long term memory storage (the hippocampus) and
regulation of emotions not involving top-down control by the PFC (the
hypothalamus). The gyrus cinguli is actually not considered to be a part of
the limbic system, but is closely related to the limbic system. The limbic
reward systems mature fast after the onset of puberty and the PFC matures
slowly and continues to mature throughout adolescence and early
adulthood. The result of this being developmentally out of phase of already
matured limbic system and a still immature PFC is among others a
heightened responsiveness to incentives and a relatively weak impulse
control. The increased activity in some parts of the limbic system during
adolescence is probably due to the neuroendocrine changes, especially
because of the secretion of dopamine (Chambers, Jane R. Taylor, & Potenza,
2003). Figure 2.2 shows the model of the different functional developmental
trajectories of the limbic system and the PFC that may be the underlying
cause of the tendency to take risks in adolescence as assumed by Casey et al.
(2008).
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