And the award for best chapter title in a non-fiction book goes to...

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky for his chapter titled, "Adolescence; or, Dude, Where's My Frontal Cortex?" It makes me laugh every time I read it. 

I've been working my way slowly through this book, picking it up in between non-fiction books from the library. (I keep one fiction and several non-fiction books going at one time.) At the rate I'm going, it's going to take me a while to finish it, not because I don't like it or because it's not interesting, but because it's 675 pages long with another thirty pages of appendices. I'm actually really enjoying it. It is full of terms such as 'prefrontal cortex' and 'limbic system' as well as phrases such as 'how the ventral tegementum is the source of the mesolimbic dopamine projection to the nucleus acumbens.' (Okay, I only have the vaguest notion of what that last phrase means; just enough to not worry about it and keep going.) It is kind of brain geek heaven. And the author is funny. He has an extremely dry sense of humor which comes out rather frequently, often in the footnotes. If you are a brain geek, I highly recommend it. 

Essentially what happen during adolescence is the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the thinking, analytical part of the brain. Until this period, it is under-developed with many more neurons that will ultimately be needed in adulthood. So adolescence is the period where the brain prunes neurons from the and then myelinates the neurons which are left, which is sort of like the neural equivalent of paving a dirt road. The communication between neurons are then is made faster and easier. Until that time, though, an adolescent brain is definitely under construction, doing its best while the builders demolish and rebuild. There are other parts of the brain that try to take over the PFC role, but those areas take on this role very imperfectly. You know, like trying to cook in a makeshift kitchen while your real kitchen is gutted. Instead of getting to move out while during the construction process, the growing child needs to stay and navigate the mess process as best they can. 

Adolescent brains just function differently from children's or adult's. For instance, adolescents are more prone to risk taking because their ability to make appropriate risk assessment stinks. The realize there is a risk, they just don't think there is a risk to them personally. This age is also has a need to seek novelty. Risk is definitely novel, which adds to its appeal. 

Other interesting characteristics include a unique response to rewards and interpretation of faces expressing strong emotions. In the first, studies have found that adolescents react much more strongly to rewards which seem large in comparison to the task, but they react negatively to perceived small rewards, which is different from children and adults. In the second, studies showed that adolescents reacted emotionally negative to faces that express what are perceived to be strong emotions. There is no pause to consider why the face might be expressing this, but a jump to the worst case scenario. 

"Thus, as adolescence dawns, frontal cortical efficiency is diluted with extraneous synapses failing to make the grade, sluggish communication thank to undermyelination, and a jumble of uncoordinated subregions working at cross-purposes; moreover, while the seriatum [those other brain parts helping out] is trying to help, a pinch hitter for the frontal cortex gets you only so far. Finally, the frontal cortex is being pickled in that ebb and flow of gonadal hormones. No wonder they act adolescent." (p. 159)