Have I ever told you that teenagers brains differ from adult brains? It is believed that the brain is not fully mature until the age of 25, especially in the frontal cortex. This make it more difficult for young people to plan ahead, to make rational decisions, and keep their focus.
I am a bit skeptical about this type of research, because I know that many teenagers can be very mature, as there can be adults over 25 that can be very immature. However, there are differences in brain anatomy between adults and teenagers. One difference is that teenagers have more grey matter than adults. It is in the grey matter where most of the brain processing takes place. It is not always best to have too much grey matter, because it means that there can be many confusing and unnecessary connections between neurons, which slows down the processing. Adults have less grey matter because their neurons have learned which connections that are important. Unnecessary neural pathways have been shut down. It is my speculation that this may be the reason why adults often are more effective at many tasks than the younger generation but on the other hand may be more conservative and less open for new ideas. Young people are on the other hand more liberal and open for new ideas, but their oversized grey matter may make them unfocused and slow during information processing. On the other hand, if one has more grey matter, one also has potential for great ability. One only has to learn to use it wisely. Here is a documentary by PBS on the teenage brain: Inside the teenage brain
2 Comments
Sheena
6/18/2011 01:20:33 am
This sounds very interesting Mr. Hansson. Do you think this grey matter is partially responsible for what they call 'teenage emotional turmoil'? Are there different scientific/biological explanations for this stage?
Reply
Mr Hansson
6/21/2011 06:21:17 pm
Thanks for you comment, Sheena. Sorry for the late reply. I know that the difference in brain activity may be responsible for "teenage emotional turmoil", but I don't know about the grey matter for this. When they compare teenage brains with adult brains, they find more activity in the amygdala (the emotional centre) for teenagers in regards to many behaviors.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
August 2015
Categories
All
|