B.J. Casey is a neuroscientist — someone who studies the brain — at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. The media and the public often depict the teen brain as a defective car, she notes. The describe it as having “no steering wheel and no brakes, just an accelerator.” Many scientists, including Casey, think that metaphor is not fair.
The characterization also didn’t make sense to Davidow. “There’s been a negative focus on adolescents as poor decision-makers,” she says. She wondered if their focus on rewards might actually help teens learn from important experiences. For instance, might it help if them remember good experiences more easily than other age groups? If it did, that might be valuable for gaining information that would prove important later in life.