The troublesome "brain" of adolescence actually comes from the adolescent brain

In the eyes of many adults, teens are a special species with strong memories and excellent learning abilities. But at the same time, they are rebellious and alternative in character, moody, and often make some mishaps, and it is easy to fall into bad habits such as smoking, drinking and even taking drugs. It is difficult to understand that teenagers, who are similar in size and appearance to adults, have so many holes in their minds. where is the problem? Is it education, or social environment? Or is it a problem with the teens themselves? The book "The Annoying "Brain" of Adolescence" wants to tell us that those "annoyances" of adolescence actually come from the brain of adolescence.

In the past, experts in neurology and neuropsychology have mistakenly believed that by the time a child enters kindergarten, brain development is almost complete. Therefore, for a long period of time, various brain studies have focused on infants and the elderly, and little attention has been paid to the adolescent brain. But in the past two decades, research on the adolescent brain has exploded, and the results have already overturned scientists' imaginations. Yes, the brain is still developing during adolescence, and it not only creates internal differences between teens and children, as well as adults, but will inevitably affect teens throughout their lives.

She found that the human brain undergoes structural and even functional changes during adolescence. With the deepening of research, the author discovered that although adolescents are gradually approaching adults in stature, their brains have the attributes of adolescence and hide some unknown fragility. In this book, Jensen is both a brain expert who solves the mysteries of the teenage brain and an excellent guide, providing us with many suggestions for teenage development. This makes this book, a successful crossover from the scientific community to the educational world, into a "Scientific Parenting Guide for Adolescents" with both theory and practice.

Next, let us enter the main content of this book, and officially start the exploration of the adolescent brain. First, where is the brain underdeveloped during adolescence? Second, how do brain changes during adolescence affect adolescent learning? Finally, why do tobacco, alcohol and the Internet harm teenagers more deeply?

After listening to today's sharing, you will find that only by scientifically understanding the key to the problem can we effectively help children solve these adolescent troubles.

First part
Now, let's talk about the first question, where is the brain underdeveloped during adolescence?

Adults always find adolescents emotional, may suddenly dye their hair colorful, and may like fancy clothes. The authors suggest that this is all because teenage brains are only "eighteen." What does that mean? The World Health Organization defines the age range of adolescence as between 10 and 20 years old. However, a research report from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom pointed out that it takes about 25 years for the human brain to mature. In this way, from the perspective of the timeline, when a person is 20 years old, the progress bar of adolescent brain development can only be loaded to 80% at most. That's why we say that teenage brains are only "fairly cooked".

However, in this period, from the structural point of view, there is no essential difference between the adolescent brain and the adult brain, but some functions of the adolescent brain need to be improved. In other words, if we compare the brain to a machine, then the components in the adolescent brain are complete, but only some of them need to be debugged for a period of time before they can reach the level of high-speed operation of the adult brain. So, where are the underdeveloped areas of the adolescent brain during this period? Let us first give you a brief introduction to the internal structure and corresponding functions of the brain.

We know that there are neurons in the brain, but neurons are not the main components of the brain. If we use brain imaging technology, we can clearly see that the outermost layer of the brain is a gray circle, and in the middle is a white area. In brain science, the gray part is called "gray matter", and the white part is "white matter". The gray matter is composed of cranial nerves and the connections between the cranial nerves; the white matter is composed of only the connections between the nerves. More gray matter means that the person has strong cognitive ability and more efficient processing of information; and white matter, the brain will transmit signals to the spinal nerve through it, and issue action instructions to the body.

Scientists have found that the areas where the adolescent brain is underdeveloped starts with the gray and white matter in the brain.

Compared with the adult brain, there is enough gray matter in the adolescent brain, but less white matter connecting different brain regions. And a sufficient amount of white matter can make the transmission of signals between neurons fast enough. Adolescent white matter continues to grow during adolescence until the brain is fully developed. Here, by the way, adults can also increase their own white matter, that is, a lot of targeted repeated practice. This is also the cranial nerve basis of "deliberate practice".

The change in gray matter is a bit strange, it will go through a process of first increase and then decrease. For example, gray matter density peaks at age 11 in girls, and peaks at age 14 in boys, and then gradually decreases. Logically speaking, brain development requires neurons in the gray matter to continuously establish new connections with other neurons. The more it grows, the more gray matter it has. Scientists' explanation for this can be summed up in four words, that is: too much. Because excess gray matter will affect the efficiency and accuracy of information transmission. So the brain will start deliberately pruning the connections of neurons in the gray matter after the gray matter development reaches its peak, which is considered well-intentioned.

After talking about the micro-level, let's look at the macro-structure of the underdevelopment of the adolescent brain.