section_path: Cognitive development
section_name: Cognitive development
paragraph_text: Cognitive development
  
  Adolescence is a time of rapid cognitive development. Piaget describes adolescence as the stage of life in which the individual's thoughts start taking more of an abstract form and the egocentric thoughts decrease, allowing the individual to think and reason in a wider perspective. A combination of behavioural and fMRI studies have demonstrated development of executive functions, that is, cognitive skills that enable the control and coordination of thoughts and behaviour, which are generally associated with the prefrontal cortex. The thoughts, ideas and concepts developed at this period of life greatly influence one's future life, playing a major role in character and personality formation.
  
  Biological changes in brain structure and connectivity within the brain interact with increased experience, knowledge, and changing social demands to produce rapid cognitive growth (see Changes in the brain above). The age at which particular changes take place varies between individuals, but the changes discussed below begin at puberty or shortly after that and some skills continue to develop as the adolescent ages. The dual systems model proposes a maturational imbalance between development of the socioemotional system and cognitive control systems in the brain that contribute to impulsivity and other behaviors characteristic of adolescence. Some studies like the ABCD Study are researching on the baseline of adolescent cognitive development.