The Teen Brain,

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 Hard at Work
No, really
By Leslie Sabbagh

I
t is late in the evening rush hour, typical stop-
and-go traffic. Finally, there is a break; the tight-
ly packed group around you is soon cruising to-
gether at 55 mph. Suddenly, you see brake lights
flare up ahead. As you prepare to brake, you
glance in the rearview mirror and see an alarming sight—
a car closing way too fast on your rear fender. The teen-
age driver looks panicked, one hand clutching the steer-
ing wheel, the other hand clenching a cell phone. You
brace for the terrible impact ...
We are quick to blame adolescents for getting them-
selves into predicaments that adults believe could be
easily avoided. But recent research indicates that simple
irresponsibility may not be the full explanation. When
teenagers perform certain tasks, their prefrontal cortex,
G E T T Y I M AG E S

which handles decision making, is working much hard-

er than the same region in adults facing the same

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 circumstances. The teen brain also makes less and, most of the time, behaves like one. Brain
use of other regions that could help out. Under processes that support cognitive control of be-
challenging conditions, adolescents may assess havior are not yet mature. Add stressors to the
and react less efficiently than adults. mix— like a sudden highway jam— and a teen can
Understanding the capabilities and limita- be an accident waiting to happen.
tions of the brain at different developmental stag-
In stressful condi- es is crucial for education and psychological as- Self-Control Difficulties
tions, such as a sessment. Ironically, although the teenage years As recent studies underscore, differences in the
sudden traffic
are widely recognized as a period of tremendous prefrontal cortex— responsible for the so-called
jam, a teen’s pre-
growth and change, the mental capabilities of executive function that underlies planning and vol-
frontal cortex may
become overload- teens have been less studied than those of chil- untary behavior— may be one of the most impor-
ed, causing slow dren or adults. As more work is completed, it is tant distinctions between adolescents and adults.
or bad decisions — becoming apparent that society should not be Beatriz Luna, director of the Laboratory of Neu-
an accident wait- fooled into thinking that a teen has the mental rocognitive Development at the University of
ing to happen. prowess of an adult just because he or she looks Pittsburgh, has pinpointed differences by scan-
ning the brains of teens and adults with function-
al magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during
demanding tests of the visual-motor system.
In one setup, subjects faced a computer that
flashed lights randomly. They were told either to
rapidly focus on the lights or to try to avoid look-
ing at them. Luna found that, when trying to
block a strong reflexive tendency and make a
considered response, “teens used more of their
prefrontal cortex resources than adults did.” In-
deed, the amount of prefrontal cortex employed
was similar to what adult brains use when per-
forming a much more complex task. This exces-
sive reliance, Luna says, “can lead to error, espe-
cially when difficulty increases.”
Psychologists distinguish between two types
of behavior control: exogenous and endogenous.
Exogenous control is reflexive, generated in re-
sponse to external stimuli— for example, focusing
on lights as they appear on the screen. Endoge-
nous control is voluntary and generated by an in-
ternal plan — trying not to look at the lights. A
mature prefrontal cortex makes it easier for en-
dogenous behavior to override exogenous behav-
ior. In the traffic scenario, the exogenous response
of the teen who suddenly realizes he is going to hit
your rear bumper would be to freeze and scream,
whereas the endogenous response would be to
brake hard and steer out of the way. But for teen
brains, deliberately overriding the exogenous re-
action is more difficult than it is for adult brains.
Experts such as Luna maintain that although
adolescents can at times demonstrate adult-level
cognitive control of decision making, this endog-
enous power is only beginning to mature. In the
visual-motor tests, she explains, subjects must
AG E F O T O S T O C K

use the prefrontal cortex to tell the rest of the

brain how to behave. “Adolescents show similar
capabilities of inhibition compared with adults,
but the fMRIs show that they are using up pre-

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 ( Bad decisions and risky behavior may result from an
immature prefrontal cortex, not just rebellion. )
Children Adolescents Adults
Ages 8 to 13 14 to 17 18 to 30

frontal cortex like crazy,” Luna notes. Adults call memory task, and used more right inferior pari- In a test of visual
on other parts of the brain “to collaborate and etal cortex but less superior parietal cortex than control, adoles-
better distribute the workload,” she adds. younger adolescents.” cents (center)
The implication is that if something unexpect- Tapert infers that older adolescents recruit called on more
F R O M “ M AT U R AT I O N O F W I D E LY D I S T R I B U T E D B R A I N F U N C T I O N S U B S E R V E S C O G N I T I V E D E V E L O P M E N T,” B Y B E AT R I Z L U N A

ed occurs in an already stressful situation, an ado- different neural networks and employ different brain regions than
children yet far
E T A L . , I N N E U R O I M A G E , V O L . 1 3 , N O . 5 , PAG E S 78 6 –7 9 3 ; M AY 2 0 0 1 ; R E P R I N T E D W I T H P E R M I S S I O N F R O M E L S E V I E R

lescent may exhaust his or her prefrontal cortex strategies to perform the same job. Older teens
fewer than adults,
resources. Adults can better handle the stress by used regions that suggested they solved the task
who better distrib-
tapping other brain regions. And in everyday life, through a verbal strategy rather than through uted the workload.
general overtaxing of the prefrontal cortex may simple (yet taxing) rote spatial rehearsal, which
undermine executive function, impairing planned appears to be how the younger teens performed
behaviors and choices. That may explain why ado- the task. Over the course of adolescence, the
lescents exhibit impulsive or thoughtless behavior. brain involves more areas in general and distrib-
For example, Luna says, it may be easier for adults utes certain tasks to specialized regions, thereby
to suppress bad responses to peer pressure. They reducing the neuronal effort necessary to achieve
may be better able to keep themselves in line, rath- the same level of performance. “I was surprised
er than succumbing to temptation. with the magnitude of change we observed across
this relatively narrow age range,” Tapert says.
Overloading the Cortex Early adolescents can perform well on spatial
Full maturation of executive function occurs working-memory tests, but it appears they need
only as a completely integrated, collaborative to engage in more neural activity to do so. They
brain system emerges, in the late teens and even in also become much less efficient if they are stressed
the early 20s, according to psychologists. But in when asked to perform an additional task. Only
adolescents, a key contributor that helps to guide at the end of adolescence, Tapert says, is spatial
voluntary behavior— working memory— is also working memory efficiently distributed across
still developing. Luna’s fMRI images support the brain regions.
conclusion that adolescents are not as efficient in
recruiting areas that support working memory. Still Pruning
Weak integration has also been found by Su- Recent structural MRI images of adolescent
san F. Tapert, associate professor of psychiatry at brains lend credence to the notion that regions of
the University of California, San Diego, who in- the teen brain involved in decision making and
vestigated spatial working memory in earlier and
later adolescence. Tapert tested 25 young teens
(The Author)
(ages 12 to 14) and 24 older teens (ages 15 to 17)
using fMRI. Older adolescents, she says, “showed LESLIE SABBAGH is a science journalist who specializes in medicine and
more intense and widespread dorsolateral pre- aerospace. She has flown on combat medevac missions in Iraq and NASA
frontal activation as they performed a working- science and microgravity flights.

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 behavior control undergo significant physical ogy explains reckless behavior, however. Robert
changes. Jay N. Giedd, a psychiatrist and inves- Epstein, a psychologist, visiting scholar at the
tigator in the Child Psychiatry Branch at the Na- University of California, San Diego, and founder
tional Institute of Mental Health, has shown that of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies,
the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, important in says he is “infuriated” by the very concept that
controlling impulses, undergoes synaptic prun- there is a teen brain that is so different from an
ing— the elimination of unnecessary connections adult brain. “There is no such thing. It’s a hoax,
between neurons. This results in more efficient pushed to some extent by drug companies who
transmission of nerve impulses. are funding research,” he asserts.
Most researchers agree that pruning is a fun- To bust the myth that routine brain develop-
damental mechanism for brain maturation. So is ment underlies teenage behavioral problems, Ep-

( Critics say there is no such thing as a teen brain; the

notion is a hoax, encouraged by drug companies. )
adding more myelin— insulation around the ax- stein cites the influential book Blaming the Brain,
ons that send signals from neuron to neuron. by Elliot S. Valenstein (Free Press, 1998), now
Both changes translate into improved brain func- psychology professor emeritus at the University
tion. Synaptic pruning increases efficiency of lo- of Michigan at Ann Arbor. It implies that some
cal computations, whereas myelination speeds neuroscientists come under the influence of drug
up neuronal transmissions. As a result, Luna companies that want to develop the idea that the
notes, the prefrontal cortex is more able to im- brain is at fault, easing the way for doctors to
pose voluntary and planned behaviors. prescribe psychoactive drugs. (Note that none of
Giedd evaluates data from ongoing MRI stud- the studies discussed in this article were funded
ies conducted at the Child Psychiatry Branch. A by drug companies.)
recent study draws from a pool consisting of 307 Perhaps more persuasive is Epstein’s observa-
children and adolescents who underwent MRI tion that studies that implicate a teen brain tend
scans and neuropsychological testing. Many have to look only at American adolescents. He says
been retested every two years. Giedd says the ini- research shows that “teens in other countries and
tial surprise is that “the brain doesn’t change that developing nations don’t behave or feel like
much in size from age six on.” The skull thickens, American teens. If you look at multicultural and
but the brain is at 90 percent adult size. Its overall causation issues, there is no teen brain” that is
breadth is stable during the teen years, “but the universally different from adult brains.
components change in size and shape,” he adds. American culture has come to define teenage
The MRI images show alterations in the wir- years as tumultuous. “But most teens around the
ing among neurons involved in decision making, world don’t experience any such turmoil,” Ep-
judgment and impulse control, as well as in the stein notes, citing a massive study by anthropolo-
wiring the prefrontal cortex uses to tie brain re- gist Alice Schlegel of the University of Arizona
gions together. Along with other studies, the im- and psychologist Herbert Barry III of the Univer-
ages show that the prefrontal cortex seems to sity of Pittsburgh. Their book Adolescence: An
continue maturing well into the 20s. “It is strik- Anthropological Inquiry (Free Press, 1991) ex-
ing how dynamically the brain changes during amined teens in 186 preindustrial cultures. Schle-
the teen years and how long it changes into young gel and Barry found that 60 percent of the cul-
adulthood,” Giedd says. “Frankly, it surprised us tures do not even have a word for adolescence and
that [ongoing change] lasted so long.” Whereas that most teens spend much of their time with
much change occurs during the teen years, adap- adults, not segregated with only their peers. An-
tation in the prefrontal cortex continues for a tisocial behavior was absent in over half the cul-
number of years afterward. tures; where it was found, it was mild.
This is “mind-boggling,” Epstein declares,
A Hoax? because in America “we define the teen years as
Not all neuroscientists or psychologists are storm and stress. To point to the brain as the
ready to accept that the teen brain’s innate biol- cause of everything bad is wrong, because envi-

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 ronment changes the brain. We live in a society a visual stimulus.” Asking subjects to not look at Adolescents in
where kids are isolated from adults, so they learn the light requires frontal regions to communicate certain cultures
from each other.” And that, he says, can be a with subcortical regions to enforce a planned, en- are not racked
recipe for trouble. Epstein contends that when a dogenous response (“I will not look at the light”) with the turmoil of
society raises adolescents to experience a smooth, that overrules the reflexive, exogenous response American teens,
indicating that
swift transition to adulthood, much of the angst (“Look at the light”). “We’re asking a teen to do
environment, not
assumed to be a given with teens is absent. something” that, at most, is only remotely related
inherent brain de-
to risk-taking behavior, she says. “It is a way to velopment, may
Ready or Not look at the basic ability to inhibit a response.” underlie troubled
Luna calls Epstein’s view “interesting,” al- Because adolescents have a much harder time per- behavior.
though she does not agree. Either way, she says, forming tasks that require voluntary control, they
her experiments control for cultural differences could be more prone to bad decision making.
because they look at brain function based on Yet when adolescents are in situations with
emotionally neutral stimuli, not socially relevant few competing demands, they do indeed behave
behavioral decisions. like adults, Luna says. In preindustrial cultures
As for environmental influence, Luna says the that is the more likely environment, “so, of
fMRI images suggest that the brain is a vulner- course, those teens might not exhibit risk-taking
able system and that in an environment with behavior. That doesn’t mean their brain is not
many stresses it is more difficult for adolescents pruning,” she explains. “Or that there isn’t some-
to show self-control as compared with adults. thing uniquely special about adolescence.” M
She points out that the structure of the teen brain
is “not ready” and that this is a good thing, be- (Further Reading)
A N T O I N E GYO R I C o r b i s S y g m a

cause it allows the brain to develop more consis-

tently with the particular environment in which ◆ Adolescent Brain Development: Vulnerabilities and Opportunities. Edited
by Ronald E. Dahl and Linda Patia Spear. Annals of the New York Academy
it matures. “We’re trying to understand the
of Sciences, Vol. 1021; June 2004.
brain-behavior relationship,” she adds. “It’s not
◆ fMRI Reveals Alteration of Spatial Working Memory Networks across Ado-
like the teen brain is different from other brains. lescence. A. D. Schweinsburg, B. J. Nagel and S. F. Tapert in Journal of the
There is a continuum.” International Neuropsychological Society, Vol. 11, pages 631–644; 2005.
The visual-motor test, she observes, is very dif- ◆ Intellectual Ability and Cortical Development in Children and Adolescents.
ficult, “because the whole brain is wired to look at P. Shaw et al. in Nature, Vol. 440, pages 676–679; March 30, 2006.

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