People around college age have less developed brains and lesser decision-making abilities, according to a study conducted by Jay Giedd at the National Institute of Mental Health.

The study and others like it, based on the brain images of thousands of “emerging adults” between the ages of 18 and 25 years old, provides evidence that people around typical college age may be susceptible to a number of risks that adults over 29 are not, Linda Spear, a psychology professor at Binghamton University in New York, told The Red Black.

University Department of Psychology professors contacted declined to comment on the study, saying that the area wasn't within their specialty. James MacKillop, an associate professor of psychology, referred The Red Black to Spear, an expert in the area of behavioral neuroscience whose research deals with alcohol use in adolescents.

“I think it depends from person to person,” Lindsey Gaff, an advertising major, said of the idea that college age people have lesser decision-making abilities. “I know several friends in college that act 10 years older, and I know a lot of people that act like they’re still in high school.”

Gaff said that, from what she has seen, the ability to make decisions is the result of more than just brain development.

“I tend to think that most of the things in our lives are the result of experience,” Gaff said. “Obviously, brain development does play into that, but as far as making real world decisions, that’s a product of having those experiences.”

Gaff isn't far off, according to Spear, who said that environmental factors and development play equally large roles. Bigger decisions, like entering the workforce versus traveling or continuing education, may be influenced by both brain development and the state of the world.

“When the jobs are hard to come by, there is more education and people tend to live at home more,” Spear said. “In times of war when historically you need a lot of people working, and people in their early twenties are considered to be adults, you see a lot more people taking on responsibilities.”

Spear said that by comparing differences in cognitive function, researchers have seen that the brain continues to change over time. The findings differed from previous assumptions that the brain matured fully after puberty.

“The brain doesn't ever stop changing,” Spear said. “It’s not completely stable at the thirties either, but the brain is less sensitive and in a more stable environment.”

As a result, adolescent and early adult brains are more sensitive to alcohol, stress and social influences, which increases the risks associated with each, Spear said.

Paul Wildes, an environmental economics major, said he could see how brain development would affect alcohol use.

“A lot of people overdrink when they get to school,” Wildes said. “Maybe the brain might not be developed to handle responsibility or manage time, and that can lead to some bad decisions.”

Spear, whose specialty is in alcohol, said young people have a tendency to drink more in comparison to other age groups.

“At that age, they are less sensitive to the feedback cues, but the brain seems to be more sensitive to the effects of alcohol,” Spear said. “So, they're less able to tell if they are drunk but more susceptible to impairments in cognitive function, which is a very dangerous combination.”

That combination of external influence and internal sensitivity carries over into many other areas.

In a survey of 18- to 29-year-olds conducted by Clark University in Massachusetts, over half of respondents reported often feeling anxious and a third said they often feel depressed.

“Individuals from, say, their mid-teens to early twenties are exposed to more stressors than kids or adults, and according to some of the physiological responses to stress, they’re kind of predisposed to be more sensitive to those stressors,” Spear said.

Wildes said he thinks the differences there may actually be beneficial in some cases.

“Some stages in that brain development process might give you different characteristics that can be beneficial in different scenarios or different situations,” he said. “Maybe a college brain is more adaptable in those situations than somebody working a 9 to 5 [job].”

In some cases, like the ability to learn a language or an instrument, that is the case. But in others like driving, it is not. Spear said in driving studies, adolescents generally scored the same as adults when testing alone, but a marked decrease occurred when adolescents were joined by others.

“[Adolescents] are extremely vulnerable to increased risk-taking in the presence of peers,” she said. “That’s why they have these graduated driving laws now.”

In general, 18- to 25 year-olds are the same cognitively as those over 30 except in regard to social pressures, she said.

“They know what they shouldn't do, like having having unprotected sex and overdrinking or driving under the influence,” Spear said. “But knowing that and not doing it under the circumstances are two different things.”