Teens should get about 9-10 hours of sleep a night, but most teens don’t get enough sleep. This may explain why many teens stay up late and struggle with getting up in the morning.
Teens need more sleep than children and adultsĪlthough it may seem like teens are lazy, science shows that melatonin levels (or the “sleep hormone” levels) in the blood naturally rise later at night and fall later in the morning than in most children and adults. Some changes in the brain during this important phase of development actually may help protect against long-term mental disorders.
The teen brain is resilientĪlthough adolescence is a vulnerable time for the brain and for teenagers in general, most teens go on to become healthy adults. Many mental disorders appear during adolescenceĪll the big changes the brain is experiencing may explain why adolescence is the time when many mental disorders-such as schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and eating disorders-emerge. In a digital world that is constantly changing, the adolescent brain is well prepared to adapt to new technology-and is shaped in return by experience. The teen brain is ready to learn and adapt It is the area responsible for planning, prioritizing and controlling impulses. The front part of the brain, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last brain regions to mature. Of course, this difference in age does not mean either boys or girls are smarter than one another! But that doesn’t mean your brain is done maturingįor both boys and girls, although your brain may be as large as it will ever be, your brain doesn’t finish developing and maturing until your mid- to late-20s. The brain reaches its largest size in the early teen years, but continues to mature well into the 20s.Īs you learn about brain development during adolescence, consider these six facts from the The National Institute of Mental Health: Your brain does not keep getting bigger as you get olderįor girls, the brain reaches its largest physical size around 11 years old and for boys, the brain reaches its largest physical size around age 14.
Some of the most developmentally significant changes in t he brain occur in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in decision making and cognitive control, as well as other higher cognitive functions. During adolescence, myelination and synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex increase s, improving the efficiency of information processing, and neural connections between the prefrontal cortex and other regions of the brain are strengthened. However, this growth takes time and the growth is uneven.įigure 1. Up until puberty, brain cells continue to bloom in the frontal region. The biggest changes in the folds of the brain during this time occur in the parts of the cortex that process cognitive and emotional information. However, the creases in the brain continue to become more complex until the late teens. Thus, the brain does not grow in size much during adolescence. The brain reaches 90% of its adult size by the time a person is six or seven years of age. Between the ages of 10 and 25, the brain undergoes changes that have important implications for behavior. The human brain is not fully developed by the time a person reaches puberty. Describe brain development during adolescence.