As a result, research on the teenage brain is finally starting to catch up with studies of other age groups, complete with the level of detail it deserves. Researchers are also looking closely at how social media use may affect young brains, as concerns mount about teens’ online activity. Studies are increasingly considering the influence not just of peers but also of parents. But research now shows that in different settings, that same neural circuitry can also promote positive peer influence and behaviors, Telzer said, such as wearing a seat belt or joining a peaceful protest.Īs the field of developmental neuroscience matures, so too do the questions researchers ask. Heightened sensitivity to rewards, for example, which is partly driven by increased activity in a part of the brain called the ventral striatum, has been implicated in behaviors such as substance use and unprotected sex among teens. “But in the last five years, there’s been a huge shift toward seeing the developing brain as malleable, flexible, and promoting many positive aspects of development in adolescence.” “The adolescent brain was long portrayed as broken, immature, or contributing to problematic behaviors,” said Eva Telzer, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and director of the Developmental Social Neuroscience Lab at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. They’re also supporting developmentally informed policy and practice on everything from mental health care to juvenile justice. Developmental cognitive neuroscientists are at the frontier of this new outlook, using updated methodology, larger and more diverse samples, and experimental tasks with real-world relevance to answer questions about adolescents in the context of society.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |