Demystifying the Adolescent Brain

Robert Ostrander

Education Leadership

Demystifying the Adolescent Brain

Adolescents can be mature one moment and frustratingly immature the next. Why?

The brain has reached its adult size by the age of 10, making it impossible that changes in thinking during adolescence are the result of sheer increase in the brain’s size.

Scientists can no take a picture of the brains activity (fMRI)- (measuring its brain function).

Many of the most important brain changes that take place during adolescence are not in the brain’s structure, but in how the brain works.

The brain has been studied when students are asked to do a task alone or when their friends are watching. The mere presence of peer’s changes brain activity between those of adolescents and those of adults.

Peers present in an adolescent’s life activate the reward center, but not those in adults. This makes teenagers MORE inclined to take risks when they are with their friends because they are more likely to focus on the reward of a risky choice than on the potential costs.

It is all starting to make sense to me now…

A key process in the early brain development is the development of connections – synapses – between neurons. By age two, a single neuron may have 10,000 connections to neurons. The development of new synapses continues throughout life as we learn new skills, build memories, acquire knowledge, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Synaptic pruning begins – at the age of one a brain will have twice as many synapses than the adult brain. Soon after birth, unused and unnecessary synapses start to be eliminated – this process called synaptic pruning.

Over time, people discover that one path is more direct than others, so this path becomes wider and deeper. Because the other paths are not being used anymore, the grass grows over the path and now they disappear.

Just like pruning a rose or a Christian, this is a healthy process in ones development.

What does this mean for the adolescent’s brain?

The most important part of the brain to be pruned in adolescence is the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain directly behind your forehead, which is most important for sophisticated thinking abilities, such as planning, thinking ahead and weighing risks and rewards.

Maturation of the prefrontal cortex is not complete until the mid 20’s, a much later point in development than scientist’s had originally thought.

What does this mean for the adolescent?

An adolescent will be more quick to jump into the reward and punishment process, and they will be quick to judge the social aspects – judging what a person thinks of us and reading facial expressions.

They are maturing in reasoned thinking as well as taking more risks.

Kissing, music, and much more become part of the risk reward behavior.

Dopamine is released when a pleasurable experience occurs, and this can becomes so strong that just the anticipation of a moment can produce the dopamine effect.

We know there is a rapid increase in dopamine activity in early adolescence…in fact more at this time of their life than at any other. Adolescents will go out of their way to seek rewarding experiences.

Unfortunately, this causes adolescents to overlook the risks.

They are in a tough situation…their ability to control their impulses is immature at the same time that their interest in sensation seeking is at its strongest.

It’s like starting a car without a skilled driver behind the wheel.

Can you say JESUS!

Teachers sometimes are surprised by the inconsistency in student’s behavior, especially during the MIDDLE SCHOOL years.

Understanding what is going on helps us know what is behind it. As far as basic abilities involving memory, attention and logical reasoning, the 15 year old is just as mature as the adult; but the brain maturation such as thinking ahead, consequences of a decision, balancing risks and rewards, or controlling impulses are still developing.

Experiences in the classroom re what help the adolescent learn how to think ahead and control impulses.

Practicing something will strengthen the brain circuits that control that behavior…so we must provide adolescents with opportunities to practice things like planning, anticipating the consequences of a decision, and regulating their own behavior.

Although it is frustrating, when they push for more control we are to give them slowly.

Adolescents who have not been given this opportunity to develop may not succeed, but be patient, with practice, they are pruned and maturity arises.

PRAISE GOD!

Educational Leadership

April 2011