Posts tagged adolescents
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically “teenage” behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore studies the social brain — the network of brain regions involved in understanding other people — and how it develops in adolescents.
Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome Associated With Impaired Brain Function in Adolescents
ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2012) — A new study by researchers at NYU School of Medicine reveals for the first time that metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with cognitive and brain impairments in adolescents and calls for pediatricians to take this into account when considering the early treatment of childhood obesity.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health under award number DK083537, and in part by award number 1ULIRR029892, from the National Center for Research Resources, appears online September 3 in Pediatrics.
As childhood obesity has increased in the U.S., so has the prevalence of metabolic syndrome — a constellation of three or more of five defined health problems, including abdominal obesity, low HDL (good cholesterol), high triglycerides, high blood pressure and pre-diabetic insulin resistance. Lead investigator Antonio Convit, MD, professor of psychiatry and medicine at NYU School of Medicine and a member of the Nathan Kline Research Institute, and colleagues have shown previously that metabolic syndrome has been linked to neurocognitive impairments in adults, but this association was generally thought to be a long-term effect of poor metabolism. Now, the research team has revealed even worse brain impairments in adolescents with metabolic syndrome, a group absent of clinically-manifest vascular disease and likely shorter duration of poor metabolism.
"The prevalence of MetS parallels the rise in childhood obesity," Dr. Convit said. "There are huge numbers of people out there who have problems with their weight. If those problems persist long enough, they will lead to the development of MetS and diabetes. As yet, there has been very little information available about what happens to the brain in the setting of obesity and MetS and before diabetes onset in children."
This woman wants to get inside teenagers’ grey matter — by scanning their brains. “Ten years ago, there was virtually nothing out there about adolescents’ brains,” says Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London. “MRI scanning reveals how they change, well into adulthood.”
When Blakemore, 37, began studying teenagers’ brains through behavioural testing and MRI scans eight years ago, she found that the parts of the brain responsible for empathy and social intelligence were soft and constantly morphing. Other studies showed that brains adapt and learn well into adulthood — an important implication for education. "If a child in the UK falls through the net early, the political thinking is that it’s too late to spend public money on them," she says. "That’s not true — funding should be maintained through to their twenties."
To this end, she has helped to set up the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, an inter-institutional project in London which aims to influence educational policy. “We need to instil confidence in teenagers,” she says. As long as they tidy their rooms first.
Source: Wired.co.uk