What goes on in teenage brains remains one of the great mysteries of life.
Parents, teachers and peers are frequently bewildered by the adolescent psyche. Can modern science actually penetrate the teen brain to find clues to this behavior?
Teens spend an inordinate amount of time sizing up each other, affiliating with one group or another and anguishing over relationships. Both boys and girls experience heightened sensitivity to interpersonal stress and perception by their peers. While girls may become self-conscious about how particular peers view them, boys focus more on status within a group – that is, figuring out the pecking order.
Now, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) study has opened a window into the teenage brain. The study shows that emotion circuitry differs in female and male brains. Brain scans of teenage girls sizing up others reveal the activation of an emotional circuit as they grow older – during the years when girls are at increased risk for developing mood and anxiety disorders. However, little activation of this brain circuitry was observed in teen boys. Researchers studied 34 psychiatrically healthy boys and girls aged 9-17. Each teen was asked to rate his or her interest in chatting online with each of 40 teens pictured on a computer screen, so they could be matched with a high interest participant. Two weeks later the teens again saw these faces while undergoing a functional MRI scan. However, this time they were asked how interested those same teens would be in interacting with them.
Not surprisingly, the teens tended to select those faces they initially preferred as the same ones they’d be interested in interacting with them. When girls appraised expected interest from peers of high interest compared to low, the older girls showed more brain activity in the circuits that process social emotion.
Researchers concluded that a developmental shift occurred as girls aged from avoidance behavior to approaching those in whom they have an interest in and forming a relationship. This is healthy maturation of the female mind because avoidance behaviors tend to be associated with anxiety and depression. Those who fail to develop the healthy neural circuitry may be more vulnerable to anxiety and mood disorders, although this was not studied.
In contrast, males showed little change in the same emotional circuitry over time. Researchers suggest this may indicate a diminishing interest in particular peers in favor of bonding with groups.
Of course, many people may assume that this is added proof that men are just underdeveloped emotionally and no match for the female psyche.See All House Calls by Dr. Geehr.