Adolescents in the 21st century pose a great risk to others as well as themselves

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Adolescents in the 21st century pose a great risk to others as well as themselves

The mice experiment

The results of the experiment showed that the young mice had outdrunk their elders

Half of the mice were 4 weeks old (which would make them Adolescents) the other half 12 weeks old ( which meant they are adult mice).

A team of researches gathered 86 mice and placed them in Plexiglas cages. Each cage had 1-3 mice's and they placed ethanol in water and recorded the results.

How the teenage brain functions

The frontal lobes are home to the brain's executive function, which is frequently referred to as "executive function." They are in charge of planning, self-awareness, and judgement.

People aren't entirely myelinated until they're in their twenties or thirties. That's why parents sometimes need to be their child's frontal Lobe.

They should, in theory, operate as a check on impulses coming from other sections of the brain. However, as Jensen points out, the brain is still busily forming connections between its various regions during the adolescent years. The axons, which conduct electrical impulses, are surrounded by myelin in this process. (Axons are insulated by myelin, which allows impulses to travel faster.) It turns out that the connections are formed from the back of the brain, with the frontal lobes being one of the last to be connected.

Frances Jensen is a neurologist, a mother, and an author. She gives a parenting handbook interwoven with the latest MRI findings in her book "The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults." Adolescents, according to her, suffer from the cerebral equivalent of defective spark plugs.

Every adult has something they regret doing as teenagers, yet the teenage brain is still a mystery to them.

It's partly due to the decline of other horrific threats like scarlet fever, diphtheria, hunger, smallpox, and plague. Adolescence evolved over a long period of time during which survival at any age was a challenge. If the dangers are low level, the safety is as well.

Despites how healthy they are, teenagers have the highest death rate

Accidents are becoming the largest cause of death among adolescents, a phenomenon known as the "accident hump."

Lawmakers don't really know teens, therefore something like giving a sixteen-year-old driving license can be dangerous. It's like giving a sixty-year-old a driving license after a few courses on driving, and sixty-year-olds are dangerous when it comes to driving.

In his studies, Steinberg realized whether are with their peers or they think they're being watched by their peers, the results still remain the same.

This is particularly true when a group of teenagers gets together. For example, an adolescent driving with other teens is four times more likely to crash than a teenager driving alone.

The nucleus accumbens also known as the 'Pleasure center' in teens

Children's brains generate more dopamine receptors as they grow older. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has a variety of roles in the human neurological system, the most appealing of which is to signal pleasure.

That's why the simplest pleasure as adults feel nothing like the simplest pleasure as teens which may leads to teenagers doing the most brainless things.

It begins early in life and progresses into the adolescent years. It peaks during adolescence and then starts to contract. This growth of the pleasure centre occurs in conjunction with other sensation-enhancing changes.

Laurence Steinberg is a Temple University professor of psychology, a father, and the lead researcher on the inebriated-mouse study. He is also the author of "Age of Opportunity: Adolescent Life Lessons from the New Science." He, like Jensen, believes that adolescent brains are distinct from adults. Whereas Jensen sees a problem with loosely connected frontal lobes, Steinberg sees an enlarged nucleus accumbens.

Adults, according to Steinberg, go through life with wads of cotton in their metaphorical noses. Adolescents, on the other hand, are built to sniff out treats at a hundred paces.