It happens in the best of families. Parents wake up one day to find their child has been replaced by an alien. For all those parents who wondered what happened to their wonderful children when they became teenagers, science holds the answer, and the problem isn’t their hormones, it’s their brains.Jody Stratford, a psychotherapist who counseled junior high students, gave a lecture to Falcon parents last November titled, “The Fragile Teen Brain.” Stratford told parents they are living with a person whose brain is undergoing a massive transformation, and neuroscientists are only beginning to study and understand this phenomenon.Stratford based her talk on “The Primal Teen” by Barbara Strauch, the health and medical science editor for the New York Times. Strauch compiled the latest scientific information available, giving doctors, parents and teachers a completely new understanding of how the teenage brain functions. The PBS news show “Frontline” also examined the new data, and interviews with neuroscientists are available on the Web site.According to Frontline, scientists thought thinking processes were formed early in life because the human brain reaches 95 percent of its adult size by age 6. However, when Dr. Giedd, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health, started using MRIs to examine brains at different ages, it became apparent the brain is incredibly plastic.Dr. Giedd found that every part of the brain changes during adolescence. The frontal cortex responsible for planning, strategizing, and judgment continues to thicken throughout childhood, “peaking at age 11 in girls and 12 in boys, roughly about the same time as puberty.” After that, a “pruning process” begins and excess connections are eliminated. The brain will eventually grow new neural connections, creating a mature mind by the time a person is 25 years old. In the meantime, Stratford said research shows the pruning affects teenagers “abstract thinking, the ability to perform logical problem solving, understanding cause and effect and the ability to experience empathy.”Giedd refers to the teenage brain as a work in progress, and believes, “It is sort of unfair to expect teens to have adult levels of organizational skills or decision making before their brains are finished being built.” Giedd said old studies showed the cerebellum, located in the lower base of the skull, is responsible for physical coordination. Now MRI imagining demonstrates the cerebellum is also involved in coordinating thinking processes.He claims the cerebellum undergoes dynamic growth and changes during teen years, making a teenager physically and mentally clumsy. In the past, Giedd said, physical activity was considered the best way to develop a healthy cerebellum. While that is still the case, mental exercise appears to be just as important. Giedd urges parents to have teenagers increase both their physical and mental exercise by playing sports and learning to play a musical instrument. “If the cerebellum is exercised and used, not only for physical activity but also for cognitive activities, it will enhance its development,” Giedd said.The corpus callosum is the cable of nerves that connects both halves of the brain, and appears to be the part of the brain most controlled by genetics. It is involved with creative thinking and problem solving. Giedd said it, too, grows significantly during adolescence, and those abilities may be affected while changes are occurring. The biggest differences between children, teen and adult brains are in the area of emotional recognition.Dr. Yurgelun-Todd, the director of neuropsychology at McLean Hospital, showed volunteers, ranging from children to adults, pictures of human faces displaying different emotions, while using MRIs to see what part of their brain reacted to the pictures. She was surprised to learn teenagers rely on the amygdala to discern facial expressions, while adults and children use their frontal cortex. The amygdala is located in the brain stem; normally, it is used to react to emotional or gut responses. While both children and adults were able to distinguish between pictures showing fear as opposed to anger, teenagers interpreted the fearful faces as displaying shock or anger.Stratford believes that is why teenagers think parents are angry with them, when, in fact, parents are worried or fearful of a decision their teenager is making. She urges parents to be more specific in their communications with teenagers, perhaps by saying, “I need you to know I’m not angry with you, I’m concerned for your safety.”Yurgelun-Todd believes teenage reliance on the amygdala instead of the frontal cortex also explains why they have trouble controlling emotional responses, and it may explain their risk-taking behavior.According to both the Frontline report and Strauch’s book, another biological problem that occurs in the teenage brain is a change in sleep patterns. Mary Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, focuses her research on sleep/wake patterns in teenagers. She said, while teenagers still need between eight and 9 1/2 hours of sleep a night, their sleep patterns actually change during adolescence, making them fall asleep much later at night. Daytime cognitive thinking also occurs later in the morning.Most parents think their teenager’s sleeping habits change because of social activity; it is actually a biological function. Unfortunately, most high schools still begin early in the morning, and Carskadon said this means teenagers are driving to school while sleep impaired, and trying to learn when their ability to think, perform and react is severely compromised.Stratford said all the biological changes in the teenage brain mean parents need to provide more structure for teenagers. “A child who could previously do four things at once can now barely do one,” she said. “We erroneously give a 9-year-old more structure than a 14-year-old.” She believes parents need to expect inconsistencies in behavior and suggests, “When your kid is showing you all of their stuff, their attitude, their overreactions; step aside and empathize. Don’t allow this volatile state to define your relationship with your child.”Stratford said, when dealing with teenagers, parents need to “give themselves and their child a break.” It is not about their upbringing, it’s about biological thought transmissions.”Note: Jody Stratford said she may repeat her lecture on the teenage brain, if enough people express an interest. Stop by Espressos and sign a request sheet. Her lecture provides additional information on how to raise teenagers in light of the new data. For more information on the teenage brain, visit www.PBS.org, enter Frontline.
