“Remember being a teenager? Rocked internally with hormones, outwardly with social pressures, you sometimes wondered what was going on in your head. So does Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. And what she and others in her field are finding is: The adolescent brain really is different.”
“New brain imaging research and clever experiments are revealing how the cortex develops — the executive part of the brain that handles things like planning, self-awareness, analysis of consequences and behavioral choices. It turns out that these regions develop more slowly during adolescence, and in fascinating ways that relate to risk-taking, peer pressure and learning.” (TED talks)
Here are three resources to help in the understanding of what’s happening in the adolescent brain:
TED talks: The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain
http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_jayne_blakemore_the_mysterious_workings_
FRONTLINE: Adolescents Brains are a Work in Progress
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/
NPR: The Teen Brain: It’s Not Just Grown Up Yet
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468