Neuroscience of child and adolescent health development.

Abstract

Recent advances in technology and neuroscience have increased our understanding of human neurodevelopment. In particular, research on neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics lends compelling support to a biopsychosocial perspective by elucidating mechanisms through which psychosocial forces and environments shape neurobiology. This article summarizes selected results from recent investigations of neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics, which demonstrate complex interaction between genes, epigenetic processes, and environmental experience that confers neural growth into adulthood. Counseling psychologists working with children and adolescents need to be familiar with recent literature to be more effective in their work so that they can provide developmentally appropriate counseling services. Social cognitive theory and resilience theory are introduced to illustrate how counseling psychologists can incorporate neuroscience research findings in a counseling context and hypotheses are proposed for future counseling psychology research.