Teenagers Are Brain Damaged

One my favorite comedy bits comes from Bill Cosby as he talks about his children and their motivation to do stupid things. After they answer his questions of "Why?" with "I don't know!" Bill exclaims, "These are brain damaged people!" A new study using functional MRI scanning confirms this.

Well, not that teenagers have brain damage, but that the areas of the brain associated with decision making are not fully developed before puberty, but develop during adolescence. The researchers found that the adolescents used two areas of the brain, instead of just the one area in the prefontal cortex, which adults use. The prefontal cortex is also associated with empathy, or taking on the perspective of the other. As the teenagers grow older, the decision making and empathic practices become increasingly associated with the prefontal cortex and the other region near the back of the brain diminishes. Accordingly, decision response times also decreased. Decision making, it seems, has a biological development aspect as well as an individual's reconciliation of the self-system with experience. The study concludes that "it is just not hormones that are causing teenagers to be their typical selves it could also be the fact that their brains are developing as well," according to Dr Sarah Blakemore, a neuroscientist at University College London.

This research leads to questions about our legal system and the circumstances in which children are tried as adults. The legal definition of having the capacity to tell right from wrong is different than the more nuanced version psychologists would use. Also, the notion of consent in sexual contexts involving teenagers is another topic affected by the ramifications of the brain scan study. Could it be, that we have to treat children as children?