Monday, January 24, 2011

Inside the Teenage Brain


The brain is composed of six different parts which are in charge of different functions. Teenagers act different from kids but are yet not the same as adults. This behavior teenagers have in common is caused by their brain. Teenagers have not yet fully developed their frontal lobe which is responsible for controlling personality traits, behavior, reasoning planning and emotions. For this reason teenager’s emotions and feeling changed dramatically from one moment to the next defining a blurry personality not yet defined. These dramatic changes are caused by the unfinished development of the frontal lobe and hormones. Teenagers are also more venerable in making bad decisions. As previously stated, the frontal lobe control reasoning and as this is not completely finished teenagers tend to make bad decisions for lack of reasoning. They have a short sight of the future, living only the present committing decisions they will later regret. This explains the amount of teenagers involved with drugs, alcohol, suicide or dangerous activity. The frontal lobe is also in charge of emotions that is why they interpret and express emotions differently. They see and analyze the outside world not the same as adults would because of their frontal lobe. As well as seeing differently they cannot regulate their own emotions, having ups and downs constantly. Naturally teenagers express independence and separation but they misinterpret their feelings having confused mind, leading to doing things they don’t really think about. As they express this dislike towards parents they also feel the love between them and like to have them around. They contradict themselves very often caused by the processing developing brain. This behavior can change depending of the people and connections they encounter in their life. This is why some teens are different and better in behaving, reasoning, planning and regulating emotions still with the same brain. So as teenage brain is different from adult and still not fully developed, the relationships with others help improve their making of decisions and the way they act.