article

What were you like as a teenager? I was a nightmare. I was rude to my parents, always stayed out late, never did my homework, hung out with the wrong people and made lots of bad decisions. Apparently, this is the age when teenagers are out of control and behave badly. Maybe, if you're a teenager now, you think this is unfair criticism or it's not your fault. Well, you might be right!

Experts have found that it's a teenager's brain that is to blame. Between the ages of approximately 13 to 19 - a period known as adolescence - the brain is still developing in areas that control behaviour. This has an impact on learning and multitasking, stress and memory, sleep, addiction, and decision-making. For parents, these consequences often manifestthemselves in a variety of behaviours that they may have previously blamed on hormones or just moodiness.

This is quite a new discovery, according to Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, who, speaking on the BBC radio programme The Life Scientific, says "when I was at university, the dogma in the text books was that the vast majority of brain development goes on in the first few years of life and nothing much changes after mid-childhood. That dogma is completely false."

So our brains are still developing much later than was originally thought. Is this the perfect excuse for teenagers to lounge around and not get their homework done on time? Of course not! According to Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, it's to do with our prefrontal cortex – that's the part of our brain right at the front, just behind the forehead. She says "it’s involved in a whole range of very high-level cognitive tasks such as decision making and planning - we know that this region is undergoing very very large amounts of development during the adolescent years". This is the part of the brain critically involved in planning, and, for a teenager, this hasn't developed yet. So getting organised to do their homework, for example, can come as a bit of a challenge.

I wish I’d known about this because instead of telling my teacher I’d left my homework on the bus or that the dog had eaten it. Now I could say, "Sorry sir, my brain isn’t developed enough for the cognitive task of planning my homework".

vocabulary

nightmare “噩梦”，棘手的人或事
hang out with sb. 与某人闲逛
out of control 失控
behave badly 行为不当
adolescence 青春期
multitasking 同时做多件事情
hormone 荷尔蒙
moodiness 情绪多变，喜怒无常
dogma 教条，武断的意见
lounge around [laundʒ] 悠闲度日，闲逛
prefrontal cortex 前额皮层
cognitive task 认知任务
adolescent 青春期的，青少年的
critically 极其地
approximately 大约
have an impact on doing 对做某事产生影响

@ manifest
vt: 显示，表明，呈现 =demonstrate
e.g.,Social tensions were manifested in the recent political crisis.
adj: 明白的 =clear
e.g.,His nervousness was manifest to all those present.
n: 货单，旅客名单

make sentences

Our journey was a nightmare. First we got stuck in a traffic jam and then our car broke down!
It's critically important that we sign the contract today, otherwise we will lose the business.
We're blaming our son's behaviour on his hormones, it can't be anything else can it?
I've got a day off work today so I'm just going to lounge around and watch TV.
Some businesses feel the pressure to change smoking laws has been driven more by dogma than hard facts.

question

True or false? It's hard for teenagers to get organised because the part of the brain needed to do this is still developing.

answer

True. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain critically involved in planning, and, for a teenager, this hasn't developed yet. So getting organised to do their homework, for example, can come as a bit of a challenge.