14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists believe that they may have finally discovered why teenagers behave the way they do between the ages of 11 and 17. They say that this is the time when their brains literally scan themselves and decide which connections to remove and which to keep. That is to say, during childhood, when the cortex is not fully developed, a lot of neurons intertwine in ways that are not fit for adult life. During these years, while the children sleep, their brains exhibit less and less brain wave activity, as all unnecessary nodes are removed from the neuron network.
This may be one of the main reasons why, over the years, countless parents have said that they begin not to recognize their kids anymore during these periods, as the teens start letting go of the things they loved as children, and move on to other interests, such as romance and social networking. This change can happen suddenly, from one day to the next, or over a few years. However, when it does occur fast, parents are usually caught off guard, and start wondering if their children are OK.
“When a child is born, their brain is not fully-formed, and over the first few years there's a great proliferation of connections between cells. 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,” University of California in Davis (UCD) physiologist Ian Campbell explains in the March 23th issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
“The fact that there are more connections [in a child's brain] allows things to be moved around. After adolescence, that alternate route is no longer available. You lose the ability to recover from a brain injury, or the ability to learn a language without an accent. But you gain adult cognitive powers,” he tells LiveScience. Before the age of 10, if a child suffers a strong blow to the head and a brain region is affected, then the functions of that area are taken over by another one. If the accident happens after the age of 20, then they could lose vital abilities, as regions of the cortex stop exchanging functions.
These changes occur in the teenage brain for one important reason. While during childhood it can easily accumulate information and show interest in multiple areas, during adulthood, the cortex needs to be more “settled,” which means that it gains the ability to focus on one issue for a longer time, and also that of multi-tasking, which is unheard of in children less than 10 or 11 years old.