Teen’s Dysfunctionalism explained by neuroscience as biological adaptability.
Every time we come across the signboard ‘WORK IN PROGRESS’, what we usually do is to sidestep. We grant it the dignity and space it pleads, we even look forward to the outcome, its the two words ‘work' and ‘progress' that holds our attention, maybe even raises our hope.That’s precisely how adolescence and teenage is commonly looked upon, as ‘work in progress’.
Makes me reflect on a quote by an unknown person,
“It’s difficult to decide whether growing pains are something teenagers have or are”
Let’s try and dissect this bunch.
What’s changed about them in just a year or two, what’s going on inside them, what will become of them, are they happy, sad, peeved at who and prey, why?And so on and so forth.
Questions around teenagers, their sudden outrageous demeanour, their unexplainable new pursuits, their vexed aloofness, turning turtle from warm needy creatures to hissing snakes. Please pardon me, I know we need to cut them some slack. I was only echoing what parents and associates of teens are experiencing, and its a validated call.
Let’s try and understand their issues from the empirical evidence that is embedded in neuroscience. Teenage depression is a reality and we as parents, teachers, mental health workers, have to have a stock of knowledge here to better deal with this group.
- Comprehending teen’s emotional patterns in the light of neurodevelopment .
We all know of hormonal surges in adolescence, that’s our go to explanation for every episode of teen moodiness and lack of impulse control. Probably, what we didn’t realise is that Mother Nature planned this, as research indicates that rising levels of oestrogen and testosterone play a role in development of critical brain hardware. Myelination is a process that strengthens and accelerates the communication between brain regions and underlies a person’s basic learning abilities. Over adolescence there is a pruning back of these connections. The brain decides which connections are important to keep, and which can be let go.Neuroscience shows that brain development in teens is well underway till they are in their twenties. We often use the word ‘immature’ for teen outbursts. What we need to know here is that in actuality, certain parts of the teen brain like the prefrontal cortex( PFC)which regulates planning, impulse control, coordinating complex behaviours is actually underdeveloped. This explains that teenagers are coming from a different place. They are operating from the limbic system, the emotional processing centre as against the PFC as that remains underdeveloped. The Amygdala, an area deep within the limbic system, is the distinguished master of the teen brain. As a result, adolescent’s judgment is overwhelmed by the urge for new experiences, thrill-seeking, and sexual and aggressive impulses. They sometimes seem driven to seek experiences that produce strong feelings and sensations.Resisting social pressure is also more difficult for teenagers. During adolescence, the brain’s network of neurons develops many more synapses. These connections increase communication between parts of the brain and allow the individual to learn complex skills. However, this growth may happen unevenly. For example, most fifteen-year-olds can assess hypothetical risk as well as adults. However, a teen’s prefrontal cortex has not grown many connections with the limbic system yet. In other words, the part of the brain that provides self-control can’t communicate well with the part of the brain that controls the fight or flight response. Thus, the same fifteen-year-old may act rashly under stress, even if they technically “know better.” Experience plays a role in the development of the prefrontal cortex. Teens exposed to a variety of stimuli and challenges may “mature” more quickly. However, most neurologists agree that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until around the age of 25.The brain of a young teen isn’t just a bigger version of a small kid’s. It isn’t a smaller version of an adult’s, either. As children grow, their brains morph. Some areas mature and build connections. Other areas may disconnect or get trimmed away. Brain areas that process emotions mature very quickly. The prefrontal cortex does not. This leaves the emotion-processing centres on their own for a while.Testosterone levels tend to climb in puberty. And those increases have been linked with how the adolescent brain performs.
When forced to control their emotions, teens with less testosterone tend to rely on their limbic systems, Teens with higher testosterone, though, use their prefrontal cortex to rein in their emotions. Their brain activity includes the prefrontal cortex regulation of the deep-brain limbic system. This pattern looks more adult.
- What lies behind our teen’s disorderliness.
Tidiness needs a sophisticated level of cognitive control, and the way the teenage brain is connected means that their planning is not very good. Parts of the brain connect to each other through synapses, which are insulated, just like electric wires. That insulation is a fatty substance called myelin, which is created over time. The process takes years, and it starts at the back of the brain and slowly moves forward. The last bits of the brain to connect are the frontal and prefrontal cortices, where insight, empathy and risk taking are controlled. This means that very smart adolescents will do very stupid things in a very impulsive way. I don’t think organisation is a high priority for most teenagers. They have other things to worry about – they are messy because they don’t give themselves enough time to tidy up before they run off to do something else. There, so the next time we see used plates left on a couch instead of the sink or a room with every single light left on after a teen has just let himself out, it may pain us a little less.
- When teenagers turn into nocturnal creatures
There is absolutely a biological basis for this. In many other mammals, like baby rodents, sleep patterns shift during the adolescent period. From puberty to the end of the teens, the circadian clock is actually programming them to go to sleep and wake up around three to four hours later than adults. This is a problem, as they are relatively sleep deprived when you wake them up at 8am. It’s something we might want to think about as a society and in education systems, as chronic sleep deprivation is certainly not helping teenagers do their biggest job, which is to go to school. We know how important sleep is for consolidation of memory and learning. It’s all about strengthening synapses, a process which is chemically impaired in a sleep-deprived brain. This could be a reason for the fights, too – everyone knows that sleep deprivation makes you emotionally impulsive.The hormonally regulated 24-hour clocks change their settings during adolescence, keeping high school and college students awake far into the night and making it difficult to rise for morning classes.
- Why teen’s seem to worship their gadgets
Teenage brains have more synaptic connections than adult ones, which makes them highly impressionable, as they’re building synapses and modifying them as they learn. They are primed to learn quickly and can memorise things faster. The teenage brain is hungry for stimulation. But there is an unprecedented amount of it in today’s world, maybe more than ever. Because teenagers lack access to their frontal lobes, using their judgement to say: “I’ve had enough” or “I need to stop and do something else” is still a weakness for them. Studies have shown that while teenagers are better at learning to multitask than adults, distraction from smartphones and other devices can still impair learning, so they should switch them off completely when they’re trying to study.Myelination process starts from the back of the brain and works its way to the front. That means the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain involved in decision-making, planning and self-control, is the last part to mature. It’s not that teens don’t have frontal- lobe capabilities but rather that their signals are not getting to the back of the brain fast enough to regulate their emotions. It’s why risk-taking and impulsive behaviour are more common among teens and young adults.It is harder for them to put away their gadgets as compared to adults, self-restraint is not their strong suit.
It’s a massive construction project, unlike anything that occurs at any other time in life. In such a situation, things rarely flow smoothly, and surprise destinations thrive. This reconstruction explains why the personality and stability that was evident just a year or two before adolescence recedes, and suddenly new perspectives, and reactions abound.
Bradford Brown ,in his publication on the psychology of adolescence, began with the primary psychosocial tasks adolescents must accomplish. Put simply, there are four key tasks:
-to stand out—to develop an identity and pursue autonomy,
-to fit in—to find comfortable affiliations and gain acceptance from peers,
-to measure up—to develop competence and find ways to achieve, and
-to take hold—to make commitments to particular goals, activities, and beliefs.
I’m sure its not easy on anyone whose ,
Having the best day and the worst day—all on the same day
Neuroscience, has helped us take a good peep into their mindsets.
