Scientists say adolescence is a kind of
biological malfunction. Duh!
A team of neuroscientists at San Diego State University has been
working on unlocking the secret to one of life's most baffling
questions: Why are teenagers like that?
They finally figured out what anybody who has ever been a teenager
or anybody who has raised a teenager has long suspected:
Adolescence isn't just a stage of life, it's a medical
condition.
TOUGH SLEDDING ALERT: A sentence is coming up that will make your
head hurt. It includes information that no one understands, but its
inclusion in this column is necessary, in part to explain the
conclusions of the study, but mostly to prove to my editor that I
actually do some work once in a while and don't just sit around
making stuff up.
"Research has shown that during puberty the connectivity of nerves
in parts of the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex,
increases," says New Scientist magazine, which reported the
results.
OK, you can relax now. The big words are over.
Personally, I have absolutely no idea what that sentence means. I
know, of course, about the existence of the cortex. Everybody knows
that it's the famous area around
Bermuda where everything
disappears. But I didn't know that it had a frontal, let alone a
pre frontal deal going on.
Fortunately, scientists do have an idea of what that sentence
means. And it means this: Teenagers are wired for weirdness.
The increase in nerve activity that teenagers experience, the study
says, reduces their ability to recognize other people's emotions.
"As a result, they can find emotional situations more confusing,
leading to the petulant, huffy behavior adolescents are notorious
for," the magazine explains.
This is obviously good news for parents. It means that, contrary to
the opinion of teenagers worldwide, the way they behave is not the
fault of those who raise them.