{"id":26142,"date":"2015-09-05T18:22:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T00:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=26142"},"modified":"2015-09-05T18:22:43","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T00:22:43","slug":"the-amazing-teen-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/the-amazing-teen-brain.html","title":{"rendered":"“The Amazing Teen Brain”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Teenagers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I\u2019d like to call the attention of parents, grandparents, teachers, Church leaders, police, youth leaders, teenagers themselves, and just about everybody else to an extraordinarily interesting article<\/a> in the June 2015 issue of Scientific American<\/em>. \u00a0(Unfortunately, so far as I\u2019m aware, it\u2019s not completely accessible online without a purchase. \u00a0But there are libraries and other ways of gaining access to it.) \u00a0It\u2019s by Jay N. Giedd, who\u2019s not only the editor in chief of the journal Mind, Brain, and Education<\/em> but who somehow both chairs the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego and serves as a professor on the other side of the United States at the Bloomberg School of Public Health of The Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n

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Herewith, a brief summary:<\/p>\n

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Recent MRI studies have shown that the teenage brain cannot adequately be described either as \u201can old child brain\u201d or as \u201ca half-baked adult brain.\u201d \u00a0Rather, it\u2019s something unique and is characterized by both changeability and a marked increase in networking among brain regions.<\/p>\n

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One part of the human brain is the limbic system, which is associated with emotions. \u00a0It\u2019s activity intensifies at puberty.<\/p>\n

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Another section of the brain is the prefrontal cortex, which controls impulses. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t mature until sometime in the twenties.<\/p>\n

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This mismatch or imbalance \u2014 which is actually growing, worldwide, because of an ever earlier onset of puberty \u2014 makes teens exceptionally prone to poor judgment and risk taking. \u00a0But, on the plus side, it also allows them unusual adaptability and enables them to loosen ties with parents and move out into wider society.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the principle that \u201cmoving parts get broken,\u201d though, it\u2019s the period between the maturation of the hormone-fueled limbic system and the later maturation of the impulse-controlling and long-range planning capacities of the pre-frontal cortex that is the peak time for the emergence of psychopathologies such as anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, psychosis, eating disorders, and substance abuse. \u00a0Fully 50 percent of the mental illnesses that people experience emerge by age 14, and 75 percent have started by age 24.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It seems to me that understanding such things a bit better could be very helpful to everybody who interacts with teenagers. \u00a0And, fortunately, the article is very lucid.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I highly recommend it as both potentially useful and extremely interesting. \u00a0Fascinating, really.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019d like to call the attention of parents, grandparents, teachers, Church leaders, police, youth leaders, teenagers themselves, and just about everybody else to an extraordinarily interesting article in the June 2015 issue of Scientific American. \u00a0(Unfortunately, so far as I\u2019m aware, it\u2019s not completely accessible online without a purchase. \u00a0But there are libraries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Amazing Teen Brain"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I'd like to call the attention of parents, grandparents, teachers, Church leaders, police, youth leaders, teenagers themselves, and just\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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