News
12,000 Adolescents Participate in ABCD, the Biggest U.S. Longitudinal Study of the Maturing Brain
August 30, 2019Nearly 12,000 adolescents from around the country are participating in the 10-year Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study—the biggest longitudinal study of the developing brain undertaken in the U.S. Mother Jones magazine provided an inside look at this massive effort to transform the understanding of how our brains develop. “We’re going to be working with this dataset for decades,” said Center advisor Dr. Jennifer Pfeifer, University of Oregon.
Press Releases
January 17, 2023: New Guides Help Organizations Build Effective Youth Engagement Programs
August 16, 2021: New Report Examines Intersection of Anti-Black Racism on Youth Development
November 30, 2020: Center for the Developing Adolescent Announces New Advisory Board Members
October 1, 2020: Center for the Developing Adolescent Announces New Leadership
Stay in the Know
New Study: How Smartphones Could Help Predict Suicide Risk Among Adolescents
August 30, 2019What if there were a way that digital technology could help adolescents in the face of mental health crises? Center advisor Dr. Nick Allen, University of Oregon, one of the co-investigators in the MAPS (Mobile Assessment for the Prevention of Suicide) study, talked to Science magazine about how digital tech could help predict and prevent suicide.
Adolescents Need Opportunities to Contribute
July 22, 2019Contributing to their families, social groups, and communities has huge benefits for adolescents and for those they are very capable of helping. Center Communications Director Meghan Lynch Forder writes for Greater Good Magazine about why contributing is essential to healthy adolescent development.
Adolescents Are More Likely to Take Risks, and That’s a Good Thing
April 17, 2019It's true: adolescents are more likely to take risks and more sensitive to social feedback than adults. At the DIBS Center for Cognitive Neuroscience on April 5, Center board member Dr. Adriana Galván reviewed the neuroscience and explained how these qualities are, in fact, perfectly adaptive to the developmental tasks of adolescence. Medical Xpress reports.
How Smartphone Data Could Help Predict and Prevent Suicide in Adolescents
March 1, 2019Could a cell phone save a life? Around the O talked to Dr. Nick Allen, Center board member and director of the Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon, about his efforts to develop a mobile app that could predict and thus prevent suicide by tracking the activities and moods of adolescents.
Adolescents Have a Fundamental Need to Contribute
March 1, 2019Center board member Dr. Andrew Fuligni, UCLA, writes for The Conversation about a missing piece in the discussion about adolescent well-being: their fundamental need to contribute to others.
Using Phone Apps to Detect Mental Illness in Adolescents
January 3, 2019Center board member Dr. Nick Allen talked to reporter Lindsey Tanner of the Associated Press about how smartphone apps may soon be able to detect adolescent depression to get real-time help to those who need it.
The Science Behind Tweens’ Risky Behavior—and Why It Can Help Them in The Long Run
September 18, 2018Center board member Dr. Adriana Galván, UCLA, talked to the Washington Post about the importance of healthy risk taking for adolescents, and why we need to stop creating narratives that pathologize this key developmental window.
We shouldn’t disregard the ideas that come from teens’ developing brains
February 28, 2018Center board member Dr. Nicholas Allen explains why we should listen to adolescents. “What adolescents bring to a situation is this capacity for innovation and new thinking and for experimentation,” he says. “That is absolutely critical to culture. If we don’t have that, then culture remains the same.”
Teens aren’t just risk machines – there’s a method to their madness
February 6, 2018Adolescent risk-taking strikes fear in the hearts of many parents. Center board member Dr. Jennifer Pfeifer and her colleagues at the University of Oregon explain how adolescents' appetite for risks is essential for learning about themselves and exploring the wider world.