This semester, I am teaching adult aging and development as well as general psychology. I am in Heaven. I love to teach. Until this semester I had only taught night classes usually with an older and wiser population who want to go back to school and learn and not just get a degree. I had considered teaching high school or junior high, but found the college classroom much more challenging and rewarding. This semester has been interesting to say the least. The students are mostly right out of high school and given the new found freedom would rather take a lackadaisical attitude and skip class, turn in homework assignments late or not at all, and miss tests and ask for leniency. What is the cause for this? Well, it's multifaceted and the best place to start is the research on the teenage brain. This information can be found on the Allstate Foundation website on teenage brain research.
JAY GIEDD, M.D.
Chief, Brain Imaging
Child Psychiatry Branch
National Institute of Mental Health
FEW WOULD BE SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT THE BRAINS OF CHILDREN, TEENS, AND ADULTS ARE different, but actually pinpointing these differences in a scientific way has been elusive. The brain is wrapped in a tough leathery membrane, surrounded by a protective moat of fluid, and completely encased in bone. Designed to shield the brain from falls or predators’ attacks, this armor has also shielded it from scientific study. Throughout most of the history of neuroscience, information about the brain was gained chiefly from trauma injuries resulting from accidents or war. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Advances in imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), now enable researchers to safely observe the structure and function of the living, growing brain. Analyzing brain scans from hundreds of boys and girls as they grow from childhood through adolescence into adulthood has revealed three main findings.
• The brain is remarkably “plastic,” or changeable, able to modify its structure in response to different environmental challenges. Adolescence is a particularly dynamic time for the brain, creating enormous opportunity for learning, creativity, and energy, but also for trial and error, missteps, and perhaps risky behavior. Understanding the neuroscience of teen brain development may help to guide optimal driving instruction and safety guidelines.
• The process of brain maturation occurs over a longer period of time than previously thought.
Particularly late to mature is an area in the front part of the brain – part of the neural circuitry involved in impulse control, judgment, and decision-making – that continues to develop well into the 20s. This area is also involved in "multi-tasking" or doing more than one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is one of the abilities that continues to improve most throughout the teen years. This is why it is important to limit the number of "other" tasks, such as adjusting the volume on a CD player or talking on a cell phone, that a young driver must attend to.
• Brain development varies greatly from person to person. Some teens are better at inhibiting impulses, have better judgment, and are better drivers than some adults. Therefore, the findings of this research are valid only for comparing averages between groups of teens and groups of adults.
In summary, advances in brain imaging technologies have indicated that there is enormous plasticity and variation in teen brain development and that areas crucial to driving safety – judgment, impulse control, multitasking– are not yet fully developed in many teens. As shown in Dr. Steinberg’s accompanying study, this is complicated by the social contexts affecting teen driving. An important challenge will be to use these technologies to better understand individual teen drivers. The more we can learn about what sort of education and interventions are best suited to each driver, the more effective we can be in decreasing the incidence of vehicle crashes among teenage drivers.
