A Guided Tour of the Teenage Brain
Your teen son is on the honor roll, on the soccer team and assists in a homeless shelter on Sunday afternoons. Yet while driving the family car, he’s on the cell phone to his best friend (an issue you’ve addressed with him at least 100 times) and rear-ends another vehicle.
How can teens be so smart, successful, responsible and yet reckless at the same time; easily, according to researchers at Harvard University. We tend to think the teenage brain functions like an adult brain just with less experience and use. Recent research shows this is not true.
The adult brain has specific parts working together to evaluate choices, make decisions and act appropriately for a given situation. In comparison the teenage brain consists of many loose wires that haven’t been connected yet. Research during the past 10 years has shown that teen brains have both sections that remain unconnected and fast growing synapses — a junction between two nerve cells where the club-shaped tip of a nerve fiber almost touches another cell in order to transmit signals.
The brain grows and changes constantly in young people. It is only 80 percent developed in adolescents. The largest part, the cortex, is divided into lobes that mature from the back to the front. The last section to connect is the frontal lobe, the area responsible for processes such as reasoning, planning, impulse control and judgment. This means teens are easily influenced by both their genes and environment and more likely to engage in impulsive behavior.
