14 DAY TRIAL // When a kid reaches preteen years, this usually marks a transition from childhood to adolescence, and involves a lot of changes in the young one's personality. Peer pressure becomes an important factor in the life of a preteen, but experts now say that the kids' brains actually evolve to resist it.
For centuries, parents have sought to protect their children from nefarious peer pressure, which may at times coerce a child into engaging in risky behaviors and other similar habits. But researchers never stopped to actually look at what happens in the preteen brain until now.
In the new investigation, which was carried out by experts with three research institutions on the West Coast of the United States, it was determined that the brains of kids actually change in structure between the ages of 10 and 13, the most crucial period for peer pressure.
Not all the brain is affected, but certain areas exhibit significant modification, the research team learned. These changes play an important role in helping the kids resist the sometimes-nefarious influence of their peers.
The research was carried out on 24 girls and 14 boys, who were analyzed at 10 and then again at 13. Experts used a brain-imaging technique called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to analyze activation patterns in their neural pathways.
Over the study period (3 years), experts observed significant changes in the ventral striatum and the ventral medial portion of the prefrontal cortex, two important areas of the human brain.
The investigators tied these modifications to an increased ability the children displayed to resist negative peer influences and also to avoid delinquent behaviors, PsychCentral reports.
“This is a complex point, because people tend to think of adolescence as the time when teenagers are really susceptible to peer pressure. That is the case, but in addition to that added susceptibility they are also improving their ability to resist it,” explains expert Jennifer H. Pfeifer.
“It’s just that peer pressure is increasing because they spend a lot more time with peers during this time and less time with family. So it is a good thing that resistance to such influences is actually strengthening in their brains.” the expert adds.
Pfeifer, who holds an appointment as a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, says that this is the first fMRI study that was ever conducted on such modifications in the preteen brain.
“This is basic research that hopefully is laying the foundation for future studies with even more clinical relevance,” argues the expert, who is also the director of the Developmental Social Neuroscience Lab at the university.
“We really have a lot to learn about how the brain responds to really basic emotional stimuli across development,” she and her team write in a study detailing the findings. The work appears in the latest issue of the esteemed journal Neuron.