The importance of sexual and romantic development in understanding the developmental neuroscience of adolescence

In this issue, papers by Shulman and colleaugues (2016); Nelson et al. (2016) present theoretical accounts of developmental changes in risk-taking behavior and in social behavior, respectively.Both papers synthesize a large volume of neuroimaging literature in order to illuminate mechanisms of developmental change, and they highlight the incredibly rapid pace of research in developmental cognitive neuroscience in advancing our understanding of adolescence.Yet it is crucial that neuroscience-based theories of adolescent development draw not only on neuroimaging studies, but also on the wealth of psychological, sociological, and anthropological data on adolescent development.In this commentary, we focus on some key aspects of the developmental science of adolescence that we believe warrant considerably more attention in "dual-process" and "imbalance" models of adolescent brain development.Sex, love, and romance are core dimensions of adolescent development, with implications for adolescents' motivations, emotional experiences, social learning, decision making, and identity formation.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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