Politics and News Brain Development Among Teenagers
| Brain Development Among Teenagers |
| Written by Doug |
| Sunday, 25 July 2010 01:59 |
|
Brain Development Among Teenagers Differs The enigmatic human brain and how we develop as individuals is still a mystery today. Years ago, it was believed that the brain was fully progressed at or around the age of six, but with new technology, researchers have discovered the brain continues to advance and evolve through our early adult-hood ending at around the age of 25. During a time of individuality, teenage brains are flourishing and their maturity levels are changing. Through this time of expansion, teenagers are prone to risky behavior and can cause damage and lasting effects to the brain. The environment, IQ, and real-life experiences also affect the advancement of the brain; therefore causing youth to have the same developmental process, but not at the same rate. Technology has granted our society with new insight on brain development. Decades ago, the academic community, as a majority, accepted the brain was fully developed by the age of six. Now, researchers believe the brain continues to adapt and change well into early adulthood. According to Adolescent Brain Development, “The brain is still developing during the teen years. Dr. Jay Giedd of the NIMH” [National Institute on Mental Health], “the brain maturation does not stop at age 10, but continues into the teen years and even into the 20’s”. The information on the formation of the brain originated when people passed away and the brain became available for study. However, insight with the use of MRI, redefined the brain. According to the National Institute on Mental Health, “The newfound appreciation of the dynamic nature of the teen brain is emerging from MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies that scan a child's brain every two years, as he or she grows up. Individual brains differ enough that only broad generalizations can be made from comparisons of different individuals at different ages.” As we become older and pass into our teenage years, we enter into a world of self-discovery acquired by the further development of the brain. Some teenagers may take risks, while others remain responsible. Other children might have top marks in school, but have poor driving ethics. Some researchers believe this could all be inclusive on where the developmental stage of the brain rests. According to Debra Ruder, who writes for the Harvard Magazine, “The teenage brain is just an adult brain with fewer miles on it. It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them.” The question that arises here is whether or not all teenagers have an adult brain that they are just learning how to use or does the brain develop differently among our youth. Adolescent Brain Development disagrees that teens have the same brain as an adult as they report, “Research now supports what parents have long suspected—that the teenager’s brain is different than the adult brain. Recent research by scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has found that the teen brain is not a finished product, but is a work in progress”. As teenagers grow their mental capacity undergoes metamorphosis. The brain is continually changing or is part of a “work in progress”. A direct example of this can be seen in genders. By looking at men and women, one might believe women mature faster or quicker and men at a slower rate. By this definition, we as a society are already convinced that the development stage of the brain differs among teens (as far as gender is concerned). One researcher has an answer as to why the brain could develop in various ways. “The emotional ups and downs of your teen years may have a connection with how your brain develops” (Kowalski). Therefore, if we are placed in situations well out of our developmental stages, the brain will over compensate and mature at a quickened pace. Life is plentiful in experiences: good and bad. As our youth become older, they experience real-life situations. Some may experience death, while others may witness financial devastation. And still others may have to become adults prior to expectations. All of these things could alter the brain development into a faster pace of learning capabilities. The National Institute on Mental Health offers, “As teens grow older, their brain activity during this task tends to shift to the frontal lobe, leading to more reasoned perceptions and improved performance. Similarly, the researchers saw a shift in activation from the temporal lobe to the frontal love during a language skills task, as teens got older.” The current research shows major changes are occurring within the brain during the teenage years. The lack of development can cause tantrums as well as disobedience among teens. Through this time, teenagers can become irritable and unruly. Some believe this type of behavior can be related to the development of the brain. According to Ruder, author of “The Teen Brain”, she says: “Human and animal studies, Jensen and Urion note, have shown that the brain grows and changes continually in young people—and that it is only about 80 percent developed in adolescents. The largest part, the cortex, is divided into lobes that mature from back to front. The last section to connect is the frontal lobe, responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, planning, and judgment. Normally this mental merger is not completed until somewhere between ages 25 and 30—much later than these two neurologists were taught in medical school.” The actions of teenagers can therefore be partially blamed on the development
of the brain. The problem here lies in how teenagers act as a collective group. Earlier, I
wrote about the differences in maturity within genders, but teenagers need to be
observed as a collective group. Some teens may go out drinking and then drive putting
themselves and others in danger. For others, they might stay out late at night and
disregard curfew while some stay in finish their homework and are focused on their
homework. We as a society look toward all this type of behavior as responsibility, but
the majority of this behavior could be explained by the rate of the brain developing.
Adolescent Brain Development explains the parts of the brains and functions as: “Frontal
lobe—self-control, judgment, emotional regulation; restructured in teen years, Corpus
callosum—intelligence, consciousness and self-awareness; reaches full maturity
in 20’s, Parietal lobes—integrate auditory, visual, and tactile signals; immature until age
16, [and the] Temporal lobes—emotional maturity; still developing after age 16”. One
example of maturity is if we were to take a boy and girl from middle school, the girl
would probably be able to sit longer and pay attention, while the boy lost focus.
The differences in gender maturity showed that the development of the brain occurs at opposing rates. This means the brain changes separately based on gender, life experiences, as well as the individual person. According to Dr. Leonard Sax, “Girls reach the inflection point just before age 11 years; boys do not reach the inflection point until just before age 15 years. A young woman reaches full maturity, in terms of brain development, between 21 and 22 years of age. A young man does not reach full maturity, in terms of brain development, until nearly 30 years of age.” Brain development also seems to be linked with IQ. This could possibly have to do with life experiences and maturity, but an experiment conducted by Phillip Shaw, Jay Giedd and colleagues may give a little more insight. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore wrote about the experiment and said that the study found a correlation between brain development and IQ. In the experiment, over 300 youth were gathers to test their IQ levels between the ages of 8 and 16. In the end results, Phillip Shaw, Jay Giedd and colleagues found that the beginning developmental stages of brain development occurred around the age of 13 among those with superior IQ with those of lower IQ’s, the frontal lobe and thickness occurred around the ages of 5-8. As the frontal lobe reconstructs in the teenage years, as we learned earlier, our emotions are also rewired within the brain. Teenagers are learning about self-identity in their teenage years, on their way to becoming an adult. Many times, teens undergo several emotional upheavals and changes in their lives. One of these could be the transition from middle school to high school, or balancing acceptance with the ability to obtain good marks in school. The way teens handle their emotional baggage, could lead into the further development of the brain. “The emotional ups and downs of your teen years may have a connection with your brain develops” (Kowalski). While Kowalski believes that our emotions have a direct link with the development of our brain, some believe that the brain causes these emotional upheavals. Ruder paints a picture of a teenage girl receiving top marks in school, involved in various academic activities, and participates in a variety of community service, but when this teenage girl enters into a car, she is consumed by the social drive to texting and talking to her friends that she becomes neglectful while driving and ends up in an accident. This can be explained further as: “Until recently most scientists believed that the major "wiring" of the brain was
completed by as early as three years of age and that the brain was fully mature
by the age of 10 or 12. New findings show that the greatest changes to the parts
of the brain that are responsible for functions such as self-control, judgment,
emotions, and organization occur between puberty and adulthood. This may help
to explain certain teenage behavior that adults can find mystifying, such as poor
decision-making, recklessness, and emotional outbursts” (Adolescent Brain
Development). Other factors can also affect the development of the brain and cause some teens to develop quicker than others. Some of these factors could include: tobacco use, alcohol, and drugs. If teens are more prone to reckless behavior, then they are more capable of trying out illegal substances or becoming involved in illegal activities. In an interview by Dr. Jay Giedd, he explains that during this time, the teenage brain is becoming hard-wired for all potential future endeavors. “It's a time of enormous opportunity and of enormous risk. And how the teens spend their time seems to be particularly crucial. If the "Lose it or use it" principle holds true, then the activities of the teen may help guide the hard-wiring, actual physical connections in their brain” (Giedd). Dr. Giedd also talks about the function of the brain when it comes to drugs and alcohol. He says that this is the time when teens are most likely to experiment with them. “Sometimes when I'm working with teens, I actually show them these brain development curves, how they peak at puberty and then prune down and try to reason with them that if they're doing drugs or alcohol that evening, it may not just be affecting their brains for that night or even for that weekend, but for the next 80 years of their life” (Giedd). The frontal lobe is the most susceptible to drinking. This is also the area that causes judgment. “An immature prefrontal cortex is thought to be the neurobiological explanation for why teenagers show poor judgment and too often act before they think. The adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to the effects of binge drinking. Preliminary research has shown that the developing brain can be damaged by excessive alcohol use” (Preventing Adolescent Binge Drinking). Adolescence Brain Development says that from available research teenagers are more prone to the affects of alcohol on learning, memory, and development and when they continually us alcohol, they suffer long-term affects as Dr. Giedd researched. Although it may seem the brain is responsible for the actions teenagers might take when it comes to risks, but we are independent thinkers and utterly responsible for our own actions. With research constantly changing much of what our society and researchers have learned is only in theory. “The fact that judgment is still developing [in teens] may also explain part of teens' tendencies to take risks. When new, exciting activities cause neurons to release neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, that make you feel good, risky behavior may produce emotional rewards, too” (Kowalski). It is these emotional rewards, Kowalski continues on to say, that can further develop our minds and brain development into becoming an adult aware of positive and negative results. This is a significant piece of information because this means by taking some calculative risks, we are further developing the brain and without them, we can’t develop certain parts of the brain. This is a connection with our social experiences in life with the growth and development of the brain. The development rate is different for all teens based upon their individual IQ, experience, environment, and emotional state. Dr. Giedd also explains how our actions can alter the development of the brain further. In his interview, Dr. Giedd explains, that during our teenage years, the brain becomes hard-wired through specific activities. If we are to sit and watch television or play video games all day, our brains will become hard-wired to perform these specific activities while neglecting other areas of our brain to perform certain functions. On the other hand, teens who perform well in sports, condition their brains in athletic abilities, will become hard-wired to perform in theses ways just as a person who plays an instrument will perform on their left side of the brain and hard-wire the parts of the brain to play an instrument. Dr. Giedd says, “Unlike infants whose brain activity is completely determined by their parents and environment, the teens may actually be able to control how their own brains are wired and sculpted. Kids who “exercise their brains by learning to order their thoughts, understand abstract concepts, and control their impulses are laying the neural foundations that will serve them for the rest of their lives. "This argues for doing a lot of things as a teenager”. It is our experiences and actions that control a large portion of how our brain
develops. If teens learned how to control their brains in order to develop them further,
they would then be in total control of their lives and futures. The very means of being
able to control and exercise a person’s brain means that development depends greatly
on our own outlook, personality and emotional stability. “Now it appears that the brain
forms new neuron connections well into its owner's teens, and possibly even into a
person's 20s” (Kowalski).
Everything we do during this time affects brain formation in either a negative or
positive way. With a further understanding for parents on their teenage children and for
teenage children themselves, by understanding how their brain functions, they can be
more patient with themselves and with others. Kowalski realizes the emotional stresses
in an average teenager’s life and finishes her ideas with a positive note for teens in,
“Realizing that your brain functions are still developing--and improving-may make it
possible to rein in impulses that are based on purely emotional responses. One way to
increase your chances of making good choices is to ask for advice and support from
adults you can trust”.
The life situations are what really make the difference during development. Dr.
Giedd looked to study twins to find out how the function of the brain differs among our
daily activities. In his studies, he found that twins remained very close in the
development of the brain early on as parents, dressed them in the same clothes, had the
same haircuts, and event took part in the same daily activities. It was when they began
to find their own identity during middle school and high school that their brain functions
began to change. The cerebellum (the back part of the brain) is said to develop way into
the early 20’s. This part of the brain goes through the major changes during teenage
years and differs greatly amongst identical and fraternal twins. In Dr. Giedd’s findings,
he found it is this part of the brain (cerebellum) that is most impacted by our
environment and daily activities. The cerebellum is most involved in our thinking abilities
as well as coordination. “Traditionally it was thought that physical activity would most
influence the cerebellum, and that's still one of the leading thoughts. It actually
raises thoughts about, as a society, we're less active than we ever have been in the
history of humanity. We're good with our thumbs and video games and such. But as far
as actual physical activity, running, jumping, playing, children are doing less and less of
that, and we wonder, long term, whether that may have an effect on the development of
the cerebellum” (Giedd).
Even into the later teen years and into the early 20’s and probably after, the brain
continues to change on the choices we make. If our desired career is being a doctor, it
probably would help to read and continue to write to train the brain to handle these
functions. Kowalski offers an example, “Experiences may affect memory abilities. In one
study, researchers analyzed London taxi drivers' spatial recall, which refers to their
ability to remember things such as streets, addresses, neighborhoods, buildings, and
distances. The scientists found that the hippocampus region inside the drivers' brains
tended to be larger than in control subjects (people in the Study who were not taxi
drivers). Drivers who'd been at their jobs the longest showed the greatest increase. In
other words, the job-related need to recall directions and routes may have influenced
changes in the drivers' brains”. Boys might have a more difficult time in the training of
the brain as the research offered, shows that boys develop at a slower mental rate than
girls, but our daily actions can improve and condition the development of the
brain. “The world's largest study of brain development in children, conducted primarily
by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has demonstrated dramatic
differences in the trajectories of brain development in girls compared with boys” (sax).
Brain development might be faster in girls than in boys, but all teens progress at an
individual rate depending on risks: tobacco, drugs, alcohol, as well as personal risks like
speeding or staying out later, higher or lower IQ’s, daily activities and what a teenager
does in their spare time, and their environment.
The mystery of the brain is beginning to unfold as new technology arises within our society. Along with new technology, our understanding of the teenage brain is becoming illuminated as we learn brains in teenagers are still developing and at longer rates than first perceived. The rates of development vary among each individual teenager through the means of IQ, emotion, daily activity, and personal risk. The process of development is about the same by at contrasting rates. In the end, research shows that growth greatly depends on the individual experiences and not the brain itself.
Works Cited “Adolescent Brain Development”. May. 2002. 22 July. 2010 <.http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/may02factsheetadolbraindev.pdf>. Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne. “Brain Development During Adolescence”. Education Review 20.1 (2007). 82-90. 23 July, 2010 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&hid=112& 97d6-4d50-a73e-8dc9b9a7c2e3%40sessionmgr104>. Giedd, Jay. “Inside the Teenage Brain”. 22 July. 2010 < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/giedd.html>. Kowalski, Kathiann M. “What’s inside the Teenage Brain.” Current Health 2 27.3 (2000): 2-14. 22 July, 2010 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=13&sid=c349e5f4- 9ee1f1cba972%40sessionmgr11&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLGNwaWQmY3VzdGlk PXM4ODU2ODk3JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=3872187>. National Institute on Mental Health. 22 July. 2010 http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/teenage-brain-a-work- “Preventing Adolescent Binge Drinking”. 24, July. 2010 < http://www.youthbingedrinking.org/facts/c_braindev.html>. Ruder, Debra B. “Harvard Magazine: The Teen Brain”. 2008. 22 July. 2010 <http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html>. Saw, Leonard. “Gender Differences in the Sequence of Brain Development”. 2008. 23 July. 2010 < http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Boys_Girls/>.
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