Teen Brains are Really Different
BETHESDA, Md. (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are confirming what parents may already know -- teens have brains that are truly different. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, shows via brain scans that the brain is the largest it will ever be in the early teens and parts are in the process of being overdeveloped and then discarded, making adolescence a time of perilous opportunity. "Adolescence is a time of substantial neurobiological and behavioral change, but the teen brain is not a broken or defective adult brain," study leader Dr. Jay Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health says in a statement. The brain has a general pattern of childhood peaks of gray matter -- frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe -- followed by adolescent declines. As parts of the brain are overdeveloped and then discarded, the structure of the brain becomes more refined, Giedd says. There is a changing balance between limbic/subcortical and frontal lobe functions that extends well into young adulthood as different cognitive and emotional systems mature at different rates, the study says. Copyright 2008 by United Press International
BETHESDA, Md. (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are confirming what parents may already know -- teens have brains that are truly different. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, shows via brain scans that the brain is the largest it will ever be in the early teens and parts are in the process of being overdeveloped and then discarded, making adolescence a time of perilous opportunity. "Adolescence is a time of substantial neurobiological and behavioral change, but the teen brain is not a broken or defective adult brain," study leader Dr. Jay Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health says in a statement. The brain has a general pattern of childhood peaks of gray matter -- frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe -- followed by adolescent declines. As parts of the brain are overdeveloped and then discarded, the structure of the brain becomes more refined, Giedd says. There is a changing balance between limbic/subcortical and frontal lobe functions that extends well into young adulthood as different cognitive and emotional systems mature at different rates, the study says. Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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