Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
Professor of Psychology and Leader of the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group, University of Cambridge, UKAbout the author:
The Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group’s research focuses on the development of social cognition and decision making in the human adolescent brain, and adolescent mental health. Her group runs behavioural studies in schools and in the lab, as well as neuroimaging studies, with adolescents and adults.
What I want to achieve:
Research on the adolescent brain and cognition is beginning to shed light on adolescent-typical behaviour such as heightened risk-taking and peer influence. In the future, the findings could potentially have implications for education, criminal justice, mental health and other public policy areas affecting young people.