Teens need to understand how their brains work

By Frances E. Jensen

Much publicity is given to the irrational behavior of adolescents, and how they seem to just not "fit" into our social structures. Much is made of how they make bad decisions and suffer moodiness, and how emotions may "hijack" parts of their brains, resulting in stormy, distant years. But are they really aliens during this time, and is this really a fate that cannot be avoided?

When I was a beginner parent of teens, these were the messages I kept hearing, and they didn't satisfy me. I'm more of a glass-half-full person. As a neurologist and a neuroscientist, I turned a temptation to get frustrated into curiosity. For my own survival, I embarked on researching the recent literature around what is actually going on in the brain in probably one of the most important seven years of one's life, given the effect it has on the individual as well as society at large.

What I discovered is a much bigger picture, one that explains what phenomenal capacity the adolescent brain has in terms of enhanced ability to build synapses that result in better learning. I learned that the brain is so "plastic" during this window that IQ can even change - up or down - during the teen years.

Indeed, animal and human research is showing that the teen brain is relatively hypersensitive to environmental stimuli. Teens need to be aware that they are more vulnerable, not less, to intoxication by drugs and addiction. Addiction, it turns out, uses synaptic mechanisms similar to those of learning, and hence the teen can get hooked on drugs faster, stronger, and longer than adults. Shouldn't teens know this about themselves?

We know they are prone to risk-taking behavior, which results in their possibly experimenting with substances of abuse. There is biology to this behavior too: Advanced neuroimaging scans have shown that the connectivity of their frontal lobes is not fully complete so their access to split-second decision-making is not yet online - including judgment and assessment of cause and effect (all functions of the frontal lobe that adults take for granted). Shouldn't we take advantage of this recent information and make the end users, the teens, aware of what we know?

Finally, our increasingly connected digital world is putting more and more on the teenager's plate. Social networking can turn schoolyard pranks into global incidents, and frivolous Facebook posting can permanently mar their future employment screens. Let's face it, with what we know today about the biology of the teen brain, it's hard to be a teen. As adults, and owners of fully connected frontal lobes, we need to employ a level of empathy and patience at home and in the classroom. We also have to seriously consider how our revved-up environment is fueling this "fiery" behavior.

I believe that teaching teenagers about their own developmental brain state should be mandatory in high school. There is much to be gained from them realizing the "carpe diem" approach to getting the most out of these very precious years of accelerated learning. However, there are many cautionary lessons to be learned about enhanced vulnerability and the undisputable biology behind their proclivity to risk-taking behavior.

We need to work with teenagers regarding behavioral maneuvers to improve their attention and focus in the face of an essentially infinite number of distractions afforded by our digital media and social networking. This is a new applied science unto itself and needs to make it to the end users of the adolescent brain: the teens and young adults themselves.