The mysteries behind teenagers brain and behavior

In a sense, teenage brains are prepared for some tasks in the future, and some skills are being learned to prepare them for adult life. With practice and practice, the pruning period of the brain's neurons will continue, the brain will gradually abolish those neurons and dendrites that are not used, make those often used neurons stronger, and increase the efficiency of information transmission through myelinated axons . Children begin to enter puberty when they are 10 to 12 years old. The brains of adolescent children are very plastic, including the "use it or lose it" of some brain neurons, which is similar to "reintegrating oneself". In the end, the effect of brain reintegration was determined by two factors: first, which neurons teens frequently used through adolescence, and second, what they experienced during the 10 years of adolescence. On the one hand, adolescent brains are primed to learn about a variety of experiences, and on the other hand, they are unable to independently make choices about those experiences. Just like the risky situations we talked about earlier, when adolescents consider risky activities, it is the frontal lobes that process information. Still, when they thought, their assessment of risk-taking was in a hypothetical state compared to adult thinking. So why do they engage in more risky behaviors than adults? This is why neuroscientists have come up with cognitive theories of "heating" and "cooling". "Heat cognition" refers to the thinking that teens engage in when they are in a state of intense arousal, with the frontal lobes in a state of high arousal. It's like you disagree with your teenage kid's reaction when he goes to an all-night beach party. You're full of potential dangers, and he's full of the benefits of camping. For a teen, anything that can arouse his emotions—fear that others won’t play with him, acting cool, feeling bad about some people, disagreeing with parents—can lead to “heat treatment.” "type thinking (that is, lack of rational thinking). So, from that point of view, it also helps to understand why sometimes children seem mature and reasonable, and sometimes moody and demanding, like a 5-year-old does. It also reminds us why parents need to keep teens in a state of "cooling" thinking when communicating and discussing with them. However, strong emotional responses from parents often trigger emotional responses in adolescents. That is what we often say, the irrational behavior of the parents is the "catalyst" for the emotional response of the child.

A second characteristic of adolescent brains is that neurotransmitters drive these behaviors, which also helps us understand children's behaviors. Neurotransmitters are chemicals found around nerve cells and synapses that determine which neurons continue to grow or are abolished. During puberty, two chemicals in neurotransmitters: dopamine and serotonin, decrease. Decreased dopamine causes a child's mood changes and problems with emotional control. A decrease in serotonin leads to a decrease in the ability to control impulsive behavior. Another is that the neurotransmitter melatonin also increases during puberty. Melatonin is responsible for the biological rhythm and biological clock. This increase in neurotransmitter causes adolescent children to need more sleep. This may also explain why teens tend to sleep in on weekends or vacations. In addition, the increase in melatonin can also cause adolescents to stay up late or get excited, stay up late but have to get up early to go to school, just like Jesse we mentioned earlier. So we know that teens behave this way because of "heated" thinking, increased emotionality, decreased emotional control, fatigue, and need for more sleep, all of which are hallmarks of adolescence.

In addition, there is a brain area called the limbic system in the adolescent brain, which is also the main brain area that people regarded as the formation of emotions in the early days. In adulthood, human emotions are still determined by the limbic system, but the prefrontal cortex helps adults suppress emotional impulse responses. For teenagers, as mentioned above, the frontal and prefrontal cortices are changing, in the formative stage, not fully developed, which means that the teen is making decisions and having emotional responses , rely more on the frontal and prefrontal cortex layers. What will be the result? They are often moody, moody, and act more impulsive, never thinking about the consequences, and acting entirely on instinct.

The last factor is thrill seeking. The nucleus accumbens is considered a "reward center" of the brain. This part of the teen's brain is highly sensitive and sends strong signals to pursue a desired behavior or situation. The neurotransmitter dopamine produces pleasure, but because teens have lower levels of dopamine, they need more stimulation levels to produce the same pleasure, reward, and reward themselves. As a result, they seek more novelty, more intense experiences, and certain exciting behaviors associated with adventure.

The strength of adolescents' ability to control their emotions is determined by the above four factors, and is also affected by the following factors: the level of development of their frontal lobes (from a behavioral point of view, refers to the maturity of adolescents); their experience (teenagers feel that You are very capable in some aspects, such as being good at socializing, good at learning, strong in hands-on ability, like sports or art, etc.). The brains of adolescent children are undergoing tremendous changes. No matter what weaknesses in their executive skills or inadequacies in emotional control appear, they must adjust themselves to pass through adolescence, an inevitable stage of life.