Hen Will the Period of Rapid Brain Growth Occur Again for Baby Natalie?
Inside the Teenage Brain
Programme #2011
Original airdate: January 31, 2002
Written, Produced and Directed by
Sarah Spinks
Dr. JAY GIEDD, National Institute of Mental Health: -five, iv, 3, two, one-
Dr. CHARLES NELSON, Academy of Minnesota: I think the trouble parents have is that once their kid becomes a teenager, for a brief catamenia of fourth dimension, it's as though they've been invaded by another body.
CHARLIE: They need to learn how to chronicle to being a child. I remember they forgot.
Dr. JAY GIEDD: We now know that there's a lot of dynamic activeness. In many ways, information technology's the almost tumultuous time of brain development since coming out of the womb.
BRITTANY: I swear to God, I'one thousand never talking to any of your friends over again! I'll never talk to you again! I swear to God!
BRANDON: No. You lot don't have to- did I say anything? Did I say no you couldn't sit here?
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: Those cells and connections that are used volition survive and flourish. Those cells and connections that are not used will wither and die.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON, Brown University: With all of the things that teenagers take available to them, their sleep has been shoved into an ever- narrowing window.
NIKKI: Living a teenage life today is completely unlike from before. I know it's very stressful on adults, merely they're going to have to realize that information technology's today's world. That's how it is.
NARRATOR: This night, FRONTLINE takes you Inside the Teenage Brain.
NARRATOR: The sunday is upward. And within the O'Donnells' house, they are trying to get Charlie up.
PAM O'DONNELL, Charlie's Mother: Charles! Charles?
CHARLIE: What!
NARRATOR: Pam tries.
PAM O'DONNELL: Come on!
CHARLIE: No!
NARRATOR: And so Charles, senior.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr., Charlie'south Begetter: Charles, fourth dimension to get up.
CHARLIE: No! Leave me lonely!
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: All right. Well-
CHARLIE: Go out! I want to slumber!
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: All right. Well, fourth dimension to get up. I'll give you 10 minutes.
PAM O'DONNELL: Past the fourth dimension he gets upwards in the morning to the time he walks out the door, at that place's a matter of, like, 11 minutes maximum. So he's a procrastinator. Yous know, he'll just stay in bed.
NARRATOR: They happen to alive in Due east Providence, Rhode Island, but parents everywhere volition recognize the expect and the pacing. It's a school day, and at that place's a teenager to become out of bed.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: We take to remind him, "Do your hair. Go your books. Take your backpack. Have your primal for the house." It'southward a normal routine type of thing.
PAM O'DONNELL: Did you report?
CHARLIE: No. How do you lot written report math?
PAM O'DONNELL: Practice.
CHARLIE: The bacon is a little burned.
PAM O'DONNELL: Yeah. I'grand sorry most that.
Well, he'due south a very friendly person. He's very outgoing. He'south very well-liked outside the business firm. It's almost like he's a different kid than he is at abode because they don't become the that mental attitude we get.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: Well, two more days, you lot're all done. School's out.
CHARLIE: Uh-huh. One more.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: How come up yous don't have to go to schoolhouse on Friday?
CHARLIE: Because that's when the unofficial report cards are distributed.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: Well, maybe information technology'd be a good idea for you to become into school.
CHARLIE: No! They're mailing it! Why carp going in and getting out at ten:xxx? I don't have to go in.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: We'll run across.
Pam and I are trying to make certain that Charlie does well in high school so that he doesn't unknowingly close some doors on himself for future opportunities.
It was nice of your mother to cook breakfast for you this morning. Did you say thank you?
CHARLIE: Yes I did, Dad.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: That's skillful.
CHARLIE: Did I? No?
PAM O'DONNELL: No, yous didn't. You're welcome.
CHARLIE: Can I take another drink of orange juice?
NARRATOR: If parents oftentimes wonder what is going on within the teenage brain, this night some answers, perhaps more than most parents expect.
Here at the University of Minnesota, this $2 1000000 dollar car is revealing the secrets of some other fifteen-year-one-time boy to his father. While Colin Nelson lies calmly, a scanning machine - a magnetic resonance imager - volition open up a window into his brain.
The details are in that location, but what does this picture mean well-nigh mood, learning, retentiveness?
Dr. CHARLES NELSON, University of Minnesota: And so he has a good hippocampus. How come he doesn't remember to take out the garbage in the morning?
I wonder if he's awake? The kickoff fourth dimension we scanned him, when he was almost ix, he- with all that noise, he fell asleep.
NARRATOR: Charles Nelson is a neuroscientist and child psychologist at the Academy of Minnesota.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: Teenagers accept- particularly when they're get-go becoming teenagers, take every reason to believe and to experience that no one understands them, that they themselves are sometimes surprised at what flies out of their mouth. And a personal example is when my son was 12, he one day just blurted something out and so grinned. And he thought- he thought out loud, "Where did that come from?"
NARRATOR: His father is trying to reply this question. Slowly, a film is emerging of the brain of a boy- not yet an adult, not quite a child.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: So nosotros can correlate it with real life. And if we show activation in the hippocampus, the question would be, why is it that in this item instance of Colin, why he doesn't call up to bring his books domicile from school?
I remember the problem parents take is, they- no matter how well they think they know their kid, once their kid becomes a teenager, for a cursory menstruation of time it's as though they've been invaded past another body or another brain. And suddenly, they don't quite know that kid anymore, and they get thrown off balance.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: We're bending. Information technology'south a give-and-accept situation.
CHARLIE: Well, nevertheless- like, they're only virtually like that. [gesturing] They still got, like, that much more to go.
PAM O'DONNELL: It takes a lot to permit go.
CHARLIE: Not for me. You got to be cool.
PAM O'DONNELL: Well, for me it does.
CHARLIE: You got to be relaxed!
PAM O'DONNELL: I am cool. There'southward nobody cooler than me, permit me tell you. It just takes a lot, y'all know? I've- we've raised you to the best of our ability. Y'all may remember that nosotros're paranoid or nosotros're uncool or we're too strict-
CHARLIE: All of the above.
PAM O'DONNELL: Well, that's what works for us, we feel.
CHARLIE: But you're not the kid! You don't have to abide by your own rules. You-
PAM O'DONNELL: I take to bide by his rules.
NARRATOR: In an artist's studio in Cincinnati, Jim Borgman is capturing the flashpoints of life with teens. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Borgman developed the popular Zits cartoon with artist Jerry Scott. At present syndicated in 900 newspapers, Jeremy and his comic strip family are familiar to parents everywhere.
JIM BORGMAN, Cartoonist: Xc pct of the letters we get fall into one wonderful category, which are, "You must take a camera in our house," or you know, "This is my son exactly. I tin can't believe it. How are you doing this?" Jeremy is xv years old. He can't drive. He's still stuck within the orbit of his parents' rules, and they are nevertheless a much bigger gene in his life than he would like. And then there'due south that moment before he can become out of the house and drive off on his own when in that location is the maximum tension in the house.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: Many parents are thrown for a loop when their kids get to be an adolescent, in some respects. And what I recollect they need to practise is recognize that this is just another phase of child development, and even though their children may exist shouting more and talking back more and kick and- and throwing temper tantrums, it's just a temper tantrum in a 5-foot-tall body instead of an xviii-inch-long body.
NARRATOR: And Nelson knows. He's an expert on piddling babies. This ane, Natalie Aune, can already recognize her mother's vocalisation, and she's just a week old. Past measuring small brain waves, researchers at Nelson'south lab at the University of Minnesota tin show how babies are learning quickly, taking in data from the vivid world effectually them. That flow of dramatic growth in Natalie'southward encephalon volition happen once once more simply before she becomes a teenager.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: I think the transition into puberty is analogous to the transition to being a infant, in many respects, that a kid suddenly is undergoing fairly substantial changes in their encephalon development at a very, very rapid stride. And that menstruation of fourth dimension often, that lasts only a year or ii, is a time where nosotros really need to pay very close attending to what'due south happening to our kids.
NARRATOR: Simply paying attention to a teenager brings a different set of challenges.
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: We have rules that you take to follow while you're in the house, like information technology or not.
CHARLIE: Did you like your begetter'southward rules?
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: Probably non.
CHARLIE: Y'all don't remember it? "Probably"?
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: I still have a good relationship with my father, Charlie.
CHARLIE: Yeah, just did y'all like his rules?
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: I would assume he had rules that I didn't intendance for. But while I was living in the business firm, I had to abide by the rules. And I feel, you know-
CHARLIE: Did y'all want to move out of at that place as presently every bit possible considering of those rules?
CHARLES O'DONNELL, Sr.: No.
CHARLIE: They need to learn how to relate to beingness a kid. I think they forgot. Stuff like that. Let us brand our ain mistakes.
NARRATOR: Fifteen years old, a teenager with wheels that are too small, with ambitions to bulldoze, to fly in a larger world.
Tardily at night, Dr. Jay Giedd heads to work. He, too, is grappling with the teenage world, trying to untangle the workings and wirings of the adolescent encephalon. This dr. is crossing over a new threshold to a fresh understanding of adolescence.
Dr. JAY GIEDD, National Institute of Mental Health: I call up people for generations take been fascinated by teen behavior and what is happening in teens. But for then long, to actually await inside the biology of teen behavior has been very elusive. And we just oasis't had the engineering or the tools to endeavour to peer into the then-called "blackness box."
NARRATOR: But now he does. Dr. Giedd of the National Plant of Mental Health gets the use of this imaging car 1 nighttime a week to look at the brain construction of normal children. Teens come in and sometimes even slumber in this big magnet and so he can take a long hard, look inside their brains.
Dr. JAY GIEDD: Now, for the kickoff time in our human history, we tin actually start exploring the living, growing, activity of the homo brain.
Five, 4, three, two, ane, blast off.
NARRATOR: What he discovered in the earth-shaking office of the brain that sits behind the forehead, in an expanse called the frontal cortex, was an unexpected growth spurt, an overproduction of cells just earlier puberty.
Dr. JAY GIEDD: This is a process that we knew happened in the womb, maybe even the showtime 18 months of life. Only it was only when we started following the same children past scanning their brains at 2-year intervals that we detected a 2d wave of over-production. And this second wave of over-product is manifest by an bodily thickening in the greyness matter or the thinking function in the front end parts of the brain.
[world wide web.pbs.org: Read the full interview]
Dr. CHARLES NELSON, University of Minnesota: Many people mistakenly believed that most of the changes occurred in the first few years of life, and so later a kid was about 3, at that place was actually relatively little modify occurring. And we know now that's absolutely incorrect
Dr. JAY GIEDD: Well, I think the most surprising thing has been how much the teen encephalon is changing. By age 6, the brain'southward already 95 pct of its developed size. Only the greyness matter or thinking part of the brain continues to thicken throughout childhood equally the encephalon cells grow actress connections, much like a tree growing actress branches, twigs and roots.
NARRATOR: It's similar this. The brain grows like a tree. First at that place is a flurry of growth. Then unused branches or pathways are pruned. And it is this pruning that gives the tree its shape for the future.
CHARLIE'South UNCLE: I'll hold this in position because information technology has to have a lilliputian flake of an angle. You want to tighten this clamp. [unintelligible] with your fingers outset.
NARRATOR: For Charlie, as he works in his uncle's garage, the skills he's acquiring will strengthen certain neural pathways. What he practices volition combine with his ain genetic heritage to consolidate the wiring in sure parts of his encephalon and not others.
CHARLIE'S UNCLE: The last thing we want to do is requite this thing a little wiggle and-
CHARLIE: Want me to concord information technology right there?
CHARLIE'Southward UNCLE: Yes, right at that place is perfect.
Dr. JAY GIEDD: The pruning-down phase is perhaps even more interesting because our leading hypothesis for that is the "Use it or lose it" principle. Those cells and connections that are used will survive and flourish. Those cells and connections that are non used will wither and die. So if the teen is doing music or sports or academics, those are the cells and connections that volition be hard-wired.
If they're lying on the couch or playing video games or MTV, those are the cells and connections that are going to survive.
NARRATOR: It is non just what a teenager does that matters, merely how old he is and what the immature brain is capable of doing. Some areas co-ordinate and oversee others. And it those parts of the encephalon that accept long interested neuroscientists.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: We've known for a long fourth dimension that what we really phone call the pre-frontal cortex, the part that sits behind your brow, is involved in planning behavior, your apply of strategies, a technical term nosotros phone call cognitive flexibility, which is can you change your mind and practice you lot have sort of a fluid way of going about solving problems?
Dr. JAY GIEDD: The part of the brain that is the so-called CEO or the executive of the brain is still being congenital during the teenage years. Teens are capable of enormous intellectual and creative accomplishments. But that basic part of the encephalon that gives united states strategies and organizing and perhaps warns united states of potential consequences isn't fully on board yet.
NARRATOR: The risks of a astringent concussion or a turned ankle, for example. An developed brain might call for a helmet here or advise this is non quite the moment to take a elevate. Merely when yous're very good, very determined and very young, its easy to feel invulnerable.
BOY WITH SKATES: On some occasions, I clothing helmets, but not that much. I come hither almost every day, so information technology's not that much for me if I autumn because I'k kind of used to it. I just become little scrapes. No, information technology'south not that risky.
NARRATOR: Well, non that risky would exist ane mode to put information technology.
Boy WITH SKATES: It's one of, like, the most mutual, either rolling or wrists.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: Adolescence has always been a menses of high take a chance. We know that teenagers engage in risky beliefs and they have e'er engaged in risky beliefs. There's nothing new nearly that now. And because the child - the 13 or fourteen or fifteen-year-quondam - still has an immature frontal cortex, they often do not make the most responsible, reasoned decisions. And by virtue of having things available that can practice harm, they ofttimes wind up in a higher risk group than I experienced every bit a child myself.
NARRATOR: The prevalence of drugs, for case. Here at a rave party, ecstasy and other drugs are a kind of rite of passage.
Girl AT Party: When yous're on Due east, you honey everyone. Like, I dearest you.
Male child AT Party: Very similar to San Francisco in 1969.
BOY AT Political party: The way you experience, like, your hands are soft. You lot can impact your face. Your skin is very, very soft. People touch you. It'due south nice.
Dr. JAY GIEDD, National Institute of Mental Health: It's too a particularly savage irony of nature, I think, that right at this time, when the brain is about vulnerable, is as well the fourth dimension when teens are most likely to experiment with drugs or alcohol. If they're doing drugs or alcohol that evening, it may not just be affecting their brains for that dark or even for that weekend but for the next, you know, 80 years of their life.
JIM BORGMAN, Cartoonist: Sullenness, boredom, one-word answers, the misery. Y'all know, it always looks a lot more humorous to united states of america in hindsight.
NARRATOR: At the quondam carousel in Riverside, Rhode Island, Brittany Husnander and her friend, Leah Crowell, ride around just every bit they did when they were kids. But now the thrills are elsewhere.
BRITTANY: Then what happened last dark? Did yous guys, like, buss or anything?
LEAH: Nope.
BRITTANY: Why not?
LEAH: Because.
BRITTANY: I said why?
LEAH: I don't know if I want to.
BRITTANY: Why non?
LEAH: I don't know.
BRITTANY: OK. How come you wouldn't give him an answer, Leah? I want you to leave with him. Why exercise you go far so complicated?
In that location's nothing to do in Riverside. Information technology's and then tiresome. We don't- we merely walk around. That's all nosotros ever do is, like, walk effectually or, like- I don't know. We really never do anything. We go to the beach sometimes. Sometimes we get to the mall. Sometimes nosotros go to the movies. But pretty much all we do is sit effectually and just, like, talk or go in the pool or whatever. It's boring.
NARRATOR: Brittany can modify from fed-up teen to focused artist very apace. She's a proficient educatee with many talents and a lot of support from the teen expert in her firm, her mother, Beverley [sp?].
BEV HUSNANDER, Brittany's Mother: They're trying to make the all-time way they can. They're trying to put the pieces together the best fashion they know how. And on summit of it all, they're going through this hormone affair and peer pressure and all this other stuff.
NARRATOR: Bev is sympathetic to the ups and downs of teenage life. She is piece of cake about Brittany's swings in mood, able to tolerate a lot of teenage angst.
BEV HUSNANDER: Now she'southward aggravated. Can't practise zero right these last few days. I wonder whose fault that is.
God bless the guy who's willing to take her on because he's going to have to be a very open and comfy person with females, rather than being intimidated past them.
NARRATOR: Brittany's not going to be intimidated by her blood brother, Brandon.
BRITTANY: All right! You're not going to deny that they fought with me, besides. And so why aren't you mad at them? That'southward why I go mad at Leah! I don't get mad at y'all because Leah always sits in your room with you and follows yous guys and talks to you guys! I don't become mad at you, I go mad at Leah! So why are yous mad at me? Get mad at your friends! Tell your friends to stay the f--m away from me!
BRANDON: Did I say anything? Did I say, "No, you couldn't come and sit hither"?
BRITTANY: I swear to God, I'chiliad never talking to any of your friends over again! I'll never talk to y'all once again! I swear to God!
BRANDON: You don't have to stop talking to us! Yous can talk! Only don't-
BRITTANY: Am I non supposed to live in my ain house? They're hither more I am!
BRANDON: You live on Mike!
BRITTANY: I swear to God, I'll be, like, "Mike, you need to move. I live hither, and at that place'due south no other seats on the couch, then I need to lay down. Get up."
BRANDON: You don't see me doing it to your friends whenever someone goes, "Y'all want to go to Bucky's?" You don't see me get, "Yeah, I'll go with you! I'll have the walk! Oh, man, let's go!"
BRITTANY: All correct. I'm pitiful. I'm pitiful! I'm pitiful. I'grand sorry.
NARRATOR: Bev Husnander remains unperturbed. She knows it could all pass in a moment.
BRITTANY: Give me a hug! Y'all need to hug me. I hugged you.
BRANDON: OK, that'due south good enough!
BRITTANY: No, give me a hug. Requite me a hug. Thank you.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON: Nosotros think that the dramatic changes in mood - for example, a child having an burst at one moment and and then being very calm and happy the next - is due in function to changes in hormones because we know that as a child enters puberty, these changes in mood are much more dramatic. And a yr or two later puberty has begun, things level down a lilliputian bit.
But we think the ultimate responsibility for regulating these mood changes resides in the frontal cortex, and that's what's overseeing this whole performance.
NARRATOR: Jim Borgman, a parent himself, recalls his own teenage mood swings with great clarity.
JIM BORGMAN: Remembering those years and how they felt and how insecure we were and how vulnerable we felt, and sadness and the loneliness and the defoliation and the isolation. The strip is intended to be funny, and I hope it is, but there has to always be that underlying layer of, you know, the sudden touch yous have as a teenager with the deep well of human experience.
NARRATOR: Nicole Ellis often feels vulnerable, but today the picture show she's trying to portray is of the cocky-assured Nicole, the one who is running for student quango at a Toronto high school.
NIKKI: I've been attending this schoolhouse for the past years and noticed the lack of interest taken to make the schoolhouse more than heady. That's why I am running for social convenor. I of the things I'd like to bring back to y'all is our school dance.
NARRATOR: Today the students will give her a vote of confidence.
NIKKI: It's your school. Embrace information technology. Thank You lot.
NARRATOR: Just for a teenager, confidence is something clutched at, seldom held.
NIKKI: One hour, I could be really happy and laughing, and the next hour I'chiliad just really, really upset. And so it could exist one whole day I'm fine. Then two days later, I'grand just mad.
NARRATOR: Nikki lives with her mother and ii brothers. Her mother, Gayle, knows the turbulence of the teenage years.
GAYLE JARVIS, Nikki'southward Mother: I know her moods. I know when something is bothering her. I know when she feels she doesn't want to talk. And I know when it is the time to just go out her alone, and I also know when there's a time to detect out and discover out what's bothering her ASAP. I sort of have to feel her out.
NIKKI: Sometimes I simply don't feel like talking, period, and she knows. She knows that, so-
GAYLE JARVIS: I know that, like, are you feeling angry within, dislocated, what? And that's what she wants-
NIKKI: I don't even know. Sometimes I don't know
GAYLE JARVIS: Sometimes she doesn't know what she feels.
NIKKI: Sometimes I don't even know why I'chiliad upset, I'm simply upset.
GAYLE JARVIS: She comes to me sometimes, she says, "Mom, I feel like crying." So I sit down, put my arms effectually her, permit her cry.
Dr. CHARLES NELSON, University of Minnesota: The recent work on brain development, in my listen, enormously helps explicate things that we've known for some fourth dimension in child development. So people who've studied adolescence for many years have pointed to these changes in behavior that nosotros've been describing, these changes in mood and fluctuations in mood and the like, without quite beingness able to pinpoint what was responsible for those changes. And now I think we have a much better handle on that.
And I remember my statement would be that it's the changes going on in the frontal cortex that gradually give the child the power to regulate those powerful emotions, to solve problems more effectively, to be more than planful in their behavior. And then what's really new here is our ability to explain the child development piece of work that nosotros've known near for quite some time.
JIM BORGMAN, Cartoonist: I notice that the quickest way to become shut out is to ask questions nearly things that y'all're not welcome to know or to share. So for me, as a parent, it has ever been more a matter of waiting for the oyster to open up and being present when it does.
NARRATOR: Dr. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd and her acquaintance, Staci Gruber, are scanning the brains of teenagers to meet how they read emotion. The small-scale but intriguing study at McLean Hospital near Boston is mapping differences between the brains of adults and teens.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD, McLean Hospital: I came to this inquiry with the assumption that the teenager was going to wait a lot like an adult. In fact, I assumed that the 13-year-former brain would respond quite similarly to the adult brain, in terms of the kinds of tasks that nosotros were asking them to do when they were in the magnet.
NARRATOR: To explore this, Todd put teenage and adult volunteers through an MRI and monitored how their brains responded to a series of pictures. The volunteers were asked to discern the emotion on these faces. The results were surprising.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: One of the interesting things about the findings are that they suggest that the teenagers are not able to correctly read all the feelings in the developed face.
NARRATOR: All the adults identified this emotion as fear, merely the teenagers invariably saw something different.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: Patrick, how're you doing?
PATRICK: Good.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: Tell me nearly those faces? What were those faces feeling?
PATRICK: A lot of them are shocked or aroused and- I think that was it.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: OK, shocked and angry.
PATRICK: Yeah.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: OK. Thanks.
[www.pbs.org: A summary of research on emotion]
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: They see anger when there isn't anger or sadness when there isn't sadness. And if that's the case, then, clearly, their own beliefs is not going to match that of the adult. And then you'll see a miscommunication both in terms of what they think the developed is feeling, but also and so what the response should be to that.
NARRATOR: The reason for this, she believes, is that teenagers use a different office of the brain to assess the emotion on people's faces.
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: This is a really nice picture, highlighting the fact that in an adolescent encephalon, the relative activation of the pre-frontal region or this anterior forepart part of the encephalon, is less than information technology is in the adults. But in contrast to that, the more than emotional region or that gut response region has more than activation compared to the developed. Then that the relationship between these two regions is very unlike. And we think that that's been a very important finding in terms of understanding adolescent beliefs.
NARRATOR: At Nikki Ellis'due south loftier school, students often feel that they are the ones who are misunderstood, not the other way around- with some exceptions.
PATRICK KNIGHT: When you're looking on the border and see you every bit central, how does your family factor into your life? I would like a motion-picture show of you lot. No I don't desire a mug shot. I want a picture, OK?
NARRATOR: Patrick Knight is a pop teacher, oftentimes interim equally a span between the students and adults. We asked Knight to gather a group of his students to find out what's on their minds.
PATRICK KNIGHT: What'due south a stereotype that's placed on teenagers' shoulders that bothers you lot?
TYLER: That no matter what they're doing, they're ever causing trouble. Everything they practise will stop upward causing trouble in some way.
PATRICK KNIGHT: Young and stupid.
TYLER: Yeah.
NIKKI: Just that they recall we're all liars. Yeah, I think- like, not even that nosotros're liars. It's people, a lot of them, adults think we're impaired, that nosotros don't know any- [crosstalk] No, merely not even that. Call up, you can be just walking- I've been standing beside adults- I've stood abreast adults, and there could be just a girl or a guy walking. They don't look whatsoever fashion. The guy doesn't take to be- he doesn't have on no bandanas or nothing. And they'll merely, "Oh, look at them. I don't know why teens dear to walk the street."
WILL: My dad thinks that, similar, I drinkable and I cause problem. And he thinks I'chiliad always looking for ruckus and stuff. That'southward not true.
TAMARA: The funniest thing, though, is only, similar, that they think nosotros're dumb and that we're whatever. And then some of these people that accept that attitude, and they've even said stuff to me and another people, they are the biggest hypocrites I've ever seen!
TEENS: Yeah! Yes!
TAMARA: I was just, like, "OK," like, "Be quiet." You know, like, "Wait at yourself and so fix yourself upward before you approximate me."
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD: The teenager is not going to accept the information that is in the outside earth and organize it and understand information technology the same way nosotros do.
TYLER: I'll simply exist sitting at dwelling watching Television, and my mom will say, "Did you exercise that for me?" I'll be, like, "Oops. I forgot. Deplorable." "Yous didn't forget. You chose not to practise information technology."
TEENS: Yeah! Yeah!
TYLER: "You chose. You decided that yous did not desire to exercise that because if you wanted to do it, and so you'd have done it right away."
NIKKI: My mom will- she'll say, "Oh, but you didn't forget to roam street. You didn't forget to go out. You didn't"-
Dr. DEBORAH YURGELUN-TODD, McLean Infirmary: In terms of interactions at the dinner table or on the weekend or doing chores or doing homework, it means that whatsoever advice, any chat you had with them, if you're assuming they understood everything you said, they may not have, or they may have understood it differently.
NARRATOR: The new ways of looking at the brain point scientists similar Jay Giedd to a unlike agreement of how it works.
Dr. JAY GIEDD, National Establish of Mental Health: The cerebellum in the dorsum of the encephalon is the part of the brain that changes most during the teen years. And then this part of the encephalon has non finished growing well into the early 20s, even.
The cerebellum used to be idea to be involved in the coordination of our muscles. But we now know it'southward also involved in coordination of our thinking processes. And just like one can be physically impuissant, one tin can exist kind of mentally impuissant. And this power to smooth out all the dissimilar intellectual processes, to navigate the complicated social life of the teen and to get through these things smoothly and gracefully instead of lurching with adolescents seems to be a function of the cerebellum.
As a guild, we're less active than we e'er have been in the history of humanity. Nosotros're good with our thumbs and video games and such, but as far as actual physical activity - running, jumping, playing - children are doing less and less of that. The recess and the play seem to be the first thing that is cut out of school curriculums in tight times. But those really may exist as important or perchance even more important than some of the bookish subjects that the children are doing.
CHARLES NELSON, University of Minnesota: Often the hallmark of recognizing that your kid has become a teenager, afterwards they say something like, "I hate you, Dad" or "I hate you, Mom" is that all of a sudden, they discover themselves sleeping until 11:00 in the morning time, which they never did before.
NARRATOR: Kickoff catamenia is merely wrapping upward in this 9th-grade English classroom.
English language Teacher: No, we haven't done this, so nobody has this yet. OK, this is the last story.
NARRATOR: The teacher is broad awake, trying to inject a little life into his students.
English Teacher: Number 12- OK, "prodigious- wonderful, of great size." A lot of people got that mixed up with "poignant." All correct, prodigious, if we're going to be technical, OK? Biggy.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON, Brown University: What you run across in the classroom is a ocean of sleepy faces and drool on their notebooks, and so forth. When nosotros bring those kids into the laboratory, what we run across is a phenomenon that'south of a lot of business for us. They start to wait equally if they have a major sleep disorder.
NARRATOR: At a sleep lab in Rhode Island, director Mary Carskadon has become a world expert on adolescents and how they sleep. She is disturbed past what her studies show: that well-nigh teens are getting an average vii-and-a-half hours a night.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON: When you put that in the context of what they need to be optimally alert, which is ix-and-a-quarter hours of sleep, information technology'due south articulate that they're building huge, huge sleep debts night subsequently dark after night.
With all of the things that teenagers have available to them - from televisions and telephones and computers - their sleep has been shoved into an ever-narrowing window. Fundamentally, the issue is they're not filling upward their tank at nighttime, and so they're starting the day with an empty tank.
PETER KNIGHT: OK, guys, I want to know how many people had a trouble this morning getting out of bed. All of you?
NIKKI: It's hard to get upwardly because sometimes my blood brother and Mom volition come up wake me up and, similar, it'll take- y'all know, they'll have to call me, like, 15 times earlier I actually get upwards.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON: What's interesting is there's some other part of their brain that's the biological timing system, or the circadian clock, that actually helps to prop them upwards at the cease of the 24-hour interval.
NARRATOR: The circadian clock shifts forward as children become teenagers.
NADIA: I'm so used to staying upwards then belatedly and everything, I just tin can't fall asleep.
CHRIS: Like, 12:00 to, like, 1:00, sometimes 2:00.
PETER KNIGHT: Why do you go to bed then belatedly?
CHRIS: A whole bunch of- I can't slumber nearly of the time.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON: When they outset the day with the empty tank and there's no biological clock helping them in the morning, they really should be home in bed sleeping, not sleeping in the classroom.
CHARLIE: I'g not a morn person at all, not at all. Like, when I get on the bus, I don't fifty-fifty call up what happens at home. It'due south just like, blah, like, just- it's all big blur. So, like, when they say I'm grounded when I get home, I don't remember what I did in the morning.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON: The teenagers are really put in a kind of a gray cloud when they aren't having enough sleep. Information technology affects both their mood and their ability to think and their ability to perform and react appropriately.
NARRATOR: Professor Carlyle Smith at Trent Academy in Canada specializes in sleep and learning. We asked Dr. Smith to run both Nicole and Charlie through a series of slumber studies. Both teens will perform sure tasks, become to sleep for the dark and come back three days later to echo them. It doesn't affair what skills they have coming into the exam. It will simply mensurate - under diverse amounts of sleep - whether they will better their skills.
The exercises are designed to go the brain learning something new. This test is a existent brain teaser. It's similar learning an equation in math. Not just does Charlie take to trace something upside down, he must visualize the task in his encephalon and work from that picture.
Dr. CARLYLE SMITH, Trent University, Ontario: The special worry with teenagers is that they are learning a tremendous amount and trying to continue upward with their peers, and and then on. They're oft stretching almost to the limit of what they tin can practise. And sleeping in is i of the best ways that they tin can practice to sort of stay abreast of what'south going on. And allow them do it.
[www.pbs.org: More on sleep and learning]
CHARLIE: Yeah, who makes the beds.
Slumber LAB STAFFER: I practise.
CHARLIE: Tin you make mine again?
Slumber LAB STAFFER: Yeah, I'll brand it up for you lot. Did yous mess it upwardly?
CHARLIE: No, it was just from everybody being in it.
Slumber LAB STAFFER: Yeah, I'll make it nice for you.
CHARLIE: All right. Hospital corners?
SLEEP LAB STAFFER: No.
CHARLIE: No?
Sleep LAB STAFFER: I'll give you lab corners.
NARRATOR: Information technology would seem hard to go to slumber this way, but Jeremy Jacob needs to measure exactly what stage of slumber Nikki is in. He's particularly interested in REM - rapid eye motion - the fourth dimension of dreaming and learning.
The same part of the brain that was working when the teens were learning their new skills continues to rehearse and exercise when the students sleep. The brain consolidates and improves on what they have just learned. In a sense, the lessons are effortless, happening while they sleep.
Dr. CARLYLE SMITH: The all-time predictor of how well someone is going to practise, be they at Harvard or wherever, is not their Sabbatum scores or annihilation else, it's whether or not they got a expert nighttime'south slumber.
NARRATOR: 3 days later, the teens are dorsum.
Dr. CARLYLE SMITH: Charlie and Nicole, i of you got a normal night of sleep almost. What ordinarily happens is you start out with what's called a petty "stage one," then you lot go to 2, three, 4. Nicole, she got a 105 minutes of REM sleep. That's quite a flake. Charlie, on the other hand, you only got 44 minutes. You got less than half of what she got. Then you lot're a piffling brusque on REM sleep. And as information technology turns out, that's going to exist pretty important equally to what happened to your tests.
NARRATOR: Smith had purposely bundled for Charlie to have less slumber. At present, afterwards re-testing the two students, the bear witness is articulate about how important sleep is to learning.
Dr. CARLYLE SMITH: You improved by 6 percent on the ball and cup.
CHARLIE: I improved?
Dr. CARLYLE SMITH: You lot improved by 6 percent.
CHARLIE: I thought I did crappy.
Dr. CARLYLE SMITH: No, you improved by six percent. But Nicole improved 11 pct. We're looking at your caste of improvement. In terms of comeback, you didn't improve equally much as Nicole did. So she was over double what you lot had.
Now so, the mirror trace. This we think requires REM sleep. Nicole, who got lots of REM sleep, she improved 44 percentage. And yous, Charlie, you lot were worse by 10 percent.
I can't tell you any more conspicuously. Having a good night'due south sleep will give y'all more of an advantage than anything else than you can do. Now, y'all can re-learn this stuff, but you're going to run out of time. Every day you say, "Well, I'll catch up." Merely while you're catching up, Nicole is busy going alee. Yep, I think perhaps you should get to bed now!
NARRATOR: In response to the studies that show many teenagers are sleep- deprived, a number of school districts across the country have changed their schoolhouse kickoff times. In Minneapolis, high schools start over an hour later than they did five years ago. Trevor Nelson notices a big modify in first period class.
TREVOR: A lot of kids are talking, awake, yous know, smiling. It's a lot more warning than it was in heart schoolhouse.
KYLA WALHSTROM, University of Minnesota: What we constitute equally a result of the afterward showtime time is that students were attending classes. They were more than alert in form. They're reporting themselves beingness more alert. They're staying with the discussion, with the teacher. They're raising their hand. They're existence engaged equally learners instead of struggling but to stay awake and- or passively sitting there.
NARRATOR: Wahlstrom's recent report on the Minneapolis school experiment meant omnipresence was upward. But there was a down side, peculiarly for middle school students, who now commencement two hours after.
SARAH VAN DER WERF, Math Teacher: I think it'south really hurt after-school programs. Occasionally, I exit school at 4:30, and I'll come across students leaving the building and so- at middle schools. And I call up, "You have no fourth dimension to get have whatsoever kind of after-school activities, including tutoring or sports or annihilation earlier yous need to be abode and having dinner with your families," which is an important time, too.
And I- you lot know, in that location's- for every study that says kids exercise better with late start times academically, there'south studies that say kids do meliorate when they're involved in activities and sports and choirs and drama and all those things. And so I think it'south express the corporeality of kids that can exist involved in that kind of stuff.
NARRATOR: It's non only after-school activities that are affected when school districts modify their start times. Double-decker schedules, kid care- everything changes when the school showtime time shifts. Even in Rhode Island, where much of the ground-breaking sleep research was done, later school first times have met resistance.
Dr. MARY CARSKADON, Brown Academy: There accept been some other districts where it's just sort of blown up in the face up of the schools when they've tried to delay. The school is really the heart of the community and the heart of these families, and if you do it without any warning- you know, parents have structured day intendance and kid intendance for the little ones being provided by the older ones. And I mean, it just can get out of command.
NARRATOR: Applying new science to public policy has ever been tricky, and nowhere more so than in areas that affect children. Take, for instance, the debate over what science has said about early childhood.
Parents used to be told that mobiles, Mozart and lots of stimulation would make their babies smarter. If they didn't practice it early, there wouldn't be a second chance. We at present know that but isn't true.
JOHN BRUER, Author, "The Myth of the First Iii Years": Brain science has told us very fiddling about what nosotros can do to raise our children and raise our children amend.
NARRATOR: John Bruer is the author of a book, The Myth of the Kickoff Three Years.
JOHN BRUER: What we actually have to exist careful of here is if we're talking nigh how fast 3-year-olds acquire or what kind of moral decisions teenagers could make, the relationships between the behaviors and the desired behaviors and the brain structure is totally unknown. So these- this unproblematic, popular newsweekly magazine idea that adolescents are difficult because their frontal lobes aren't mature is one nosotros should be very cautious of.
NARRATOR: Fifty-fifty Dr. Jay Giedd, who seems to take penetrated deep inside the teenage brain, wonders about the kind of lessons parents can draw from his science.
Dr. JAY GIEDD, National Establish of Mental Health: The more technical and more advanced the science becomes, often the more it leads us back to some very bones tenets. And sometimes it'due south even disappointing to people that, with all of the science and with all the advances, the all-time advice we tin requite is things that our grandmother could accept told us generations agone- to spend loving, quality time with our children.
ELLEN GALINSKY, Families and Work Institute: And then often, what happens in the United States is that we're on a pendulum. We go from maxim "This is good" to "This is bad," and then we say what was bad becomes good.
NARRATOR: Ellen Galinsky is a social scientist and the president of the Families and Work Institute. She has seen scientific fads come up and become, but she says her inquiry for a book about children shows there are enduring lessons for parents.
ELLEN GALINSKY: Even though the public perception is about building bigger and better brains, what the research shows is that it'south the relationships. It's the connections, information technology's the people in children's lives who brand the biggest divergence.
TEENAGE BOY: A lot of times older kids, they seem to break away from their parents a lilliputian bit. It'southward like a feeling of liberty or something. And so they discover that when they get into a trouble, they desire their parents' assistance, but they don't want to, y'all know, outright enquire their parents.
TEENAGE GIRL: You'd actually similar them just to step in and say, "Hey, you know, you don't seem likewise, you know, happy today. Is everything OK? Because sometimes, I don't know, I'll have trouble asking- you lot know, expressing my feelings if someone doesn't come up upwardly and ask first.
ELLEN GALINSKY: Information technology's a surprise to me and information technology'south a surprise to every group of parents or teachers with whom I speak, is that kids are really yearning, teens are yearning for more time with their parents.
NIKKI: From since I was younger, she was always there for me. Whenever anything happened, it'due south her. She's there. Anything went downwardly, you know, when I'm feeling sad, any, it doesn't matter when it is, she's the type of person who always makes sure you're fine.
NARRATOR: Gayle Jarvis works 2 jobs. Every afternoon she heads out for the evening shift, leaving three kids behind. Yet even though Gayle has to spend a great deal of time abroad from her children, they feel her presence.
NIKKI: She'due south, like, always calling from piece of work. I mean, she works till, like- you've been to my firm. Y'all've heard how much my mom calls.
CLASSMATE: Her mom calls her just for not eating food today and she-
NIKKI: OK, my mom, she's the way that she has to make certain that when we get up, you know, when we come home, she finds out how was our 24-hour interval. As before long equally we come, similar, she knows the time nosotros come home. "Band, band, ring!"
I bet you it's Mom. I bet you.
TEENAGER: OK.
NIKKI: How-do-you-do? Hi, Mom!
GAYLE JARVIS: What's up?
NIKKI: What'd I say?
GAYLE JARVIS: Did Rodney come?
NIKKI: Yep, merely he have to leave early on. He said he had to get straight to work, so he said sorry.
GAYLE JARVIS: Permit me speak to [unintelligible]
NIKKI: Hold on.
TEENAGER: Hi, Mom.
GAYLE JARVIS: How're you doing?
TEENAGER: How're you?
GAYLE JARVIS: What's up?
TEENAGER: Nothing.
GAYLE JARVIS: You lot accept to be careful with kids. Information technology's the fourth dimension when you push them off, that's the time when they actually demand to exist heard. So y'all have to be very, very conscientious because it'southward easy to say, "OK, call me later, and maybe, yous know, we'll talk later," merely then subsequently might be a couple of minutes too belatedly. And then you lot don't take that chance.
BRITTANY: I hate that, how everyone just- was that how it was when you were younger?
NARRATOR: Bev Husnander spends a lot of time listening to what'south on the minds of her kids. Here she lets us ready a photographic camera to find a typical evening with Brittany and her friend, Leah.
BRITTANY: He's been suspended, similar, a hundred times. So he finally quit school considering she got- he was never in school anyways considering she was suspended so many times.
BEV HUSNANDER: For what reason?
BRITTANY: She went to class, like normal. She was just a little out of it.
LEAH: She simply couldn't walk. And then she passed out side by side to the toilet.
BRITTANY: So they but won't listen to u.s., no matter how difficult nosotros try. So we have to suck it upwardly and-
LEAH: The name of my six-folio was "How to help our children in this me-starting time culture." Whatever that means.
BEV HUSNANDER: I merely desire it to be open up. I wanted them to be able to talk back to me near anything and non experience that they were going to be reprimanded or thought foolish or insignificant or they didn't know what they were talking most because they were children or because they were kids. I think kids are a lot smarter and a lot in tuned to what's going on than their parents ever give them credit for.
GAYLE JARVIS: Growing upward, one of the things I hated, or even when I was an adult in certain situations, I hated that feeling of when I got home, I know in that location was going to be something that was going to upset the apple tree cart and that feeling y'all make it the pit of your stomach. And I don't ever want them to take that.
NARRATOR: Charlie O'Donnell regards his mom as a skillful sport, simply he's still continuously contesting for more independence.
CHARLIE: I'm going to go to the Air Forcefulness after high school, and and then I'll get my college paid for and then go to college, IT doesn't really matter where. I merely want to go out of the house. I want to live in a dorm. No parents' rules. I'd have to set them for myself.
JIM BORGMAN, Cartoonist: Separation is the whole job of teenagers. And as parents, what we would say nosotros want, what we truly want in our hearts, is to launch them into rich, independent, textured lives of their own. And so in the teenage years, here we go information technology, and information technology doesn't always feel the way nosotros thought it would.
I have a friend who says that teenagers plant their feet firmly on your chest and launch themselves off into their ain life. And that's just how it feels normally.
ELLEN GALINSKY, Families and Piece of work Plant: Then I went dorsum and I asked teens. And they said, "Well, yes, we are pushing our parents abroad because it's really hard for us to come out and say `I need you.' " Information technology makes them feel young or- you know, they desire us to be heed readers. OK, well, we tin can't be mind readers. Just what they said is, "Hang in there. If we push you away, yep, nosotros still want you, and so hang in there."
When you ask children whom they admire, they often talk about their parents. If they have a good relationship, they talk about their parents.
[www.pbs.org: Read information for parents]
BRITTANY: I tell my mom mostly everything. Like, I don't tell her guy things, but, similar, I tell her mostly everything, similar, virtually my friends and everything. I trust my mom with everything.
TYLER: I admire my mom considering she has been raising me and my sister by herself. And she's- if you know me and my sister, you know that she's done a practiced task.
NIKKI: I think you can put more trust in your mom than you lot tin can in anybody else. I have no shame in saying I beloved my mom. My mom can be articulate down the hall, and I'll go, "Hi, Mom! I honey you!" just like that.
Inside the Teenage Brain
Written, Produced and Directed past
SARAH SPINKS
Senior Producer
SHARON TILLER
Director of Photography
DOUGLAS PIKE
Audio Recording
ALISTER BELL
Editor
JEFF MORGAN
Boosted Editing
JOHN MACGIBBON
Chief Researcher
CHRISTINA SENJUG
Production Managers
ED BARREVELD
DEBORAH PARKS
Sound Mix
JIM SULLIVAN
Online Editor
Michael H. Amundson
Post Product Services
SCENE BY SCENE
Music
GEORGE GUERRETTE
Additional Footage
CTV TELEVISION INC.
WGBH/FRONTLINE
LIFETIME CARING FOR KIDS Entrada
NEW SCREEN CONCEPTS
O'DONNELL Family unit Archives
Special Thanks to
STAFF & STUDENTS AT
NELSON A. BOYLEN
COLLEGIATE Constitute
EAST PROVIDENCE Loftier School
JIM BORGMAN AND JERRY SCOTT
FOR FRONTLINE
PRODUCTION Manager
Tim Mangini
ON-AIR PROMOTION
PRODUCER
Thou.G. Rabinow
SENIOR EDITOR
Steve Audette
Gorging EDITORS
Michael H. Amundson
John MacGibbon
POST Production
COORDINATOR
Patricia Giles
POST Product
Banana
David McMahon
SERIES MUSIC
Mason Daring
Martin Brody
COMMUNICATIONS
Director
Erin Martin Kane
SENIOR PUBLICIST
Christopher Kelly
PUBLICIST
Jessica Smith
PROMOTIONS Banana
Jenna Lowe
SECRETARY
Mary Sullivan
COMPLIANCE Managing director
Lisa Palone-Clarke
PARALEGAL
Adrienne Armor
Unit MANAGER
Douglas D. Milton
Business MANAGER
Tobee Phipps
WEBSITE Product
ASSISTANT
Todd Goldstein
WEBSITE Associate
PRODUCERS
Sarah Moughty
Kimberly Tabor
WEBSITE COORDINATING
PRODUCER
Stephanie Ault
WEBSITE PRODUCER/
DESIGNER
Sam Bailey
WEBSITE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Wen Stephenson
EDITORIAL RESEARCHER
Catherine Wright
COORDINATING PRODUCER
Robin Parmelee
STORY EDITOR
Ken Dornstein
SERIES EDITOR
Karen O'Connor
SENIOR PRODUCER
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Sharon Tiller
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Michael Sullivan
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Marrie Campbell
Series Manager
Jim Bracciale
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Louis Wiley Jr.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
David Fanning
A Spin Free Production
for FRONTLINE/WGBH
in clan with
CTV and Discovery Channel Canada
© 2002 SPIN Gratuitous PRODUCTIONS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FRONTLINE is a production of WGBH Boston, which is solely responsible for its content.
Journalist: This report continues on our Web site, where you'll find summaries of brain and sleep research discussed in the plan, with details and pictures of the encephalon's development and how information technology affects teens, on-line activities for parents and teens on ways to better communications skills, a report on the challenges of applying cutting-edge science like this to public policy decisions. And find out hither if your local station is re-airing this plan and when. Then join the discussion at PBS on line, pbs.org or write an e-mail to frontline@pbs.org or write to this address. [Dear FRONTLINE, 125 Western Ave., Boston, MA 02134]
Next time on FRONTLINE: It's a multi-billion-dollar concern that has doubled in size in the last three years. It has transformed the Internet and is so successful, information technology has attracted some of the biggest corporations in America. FRONTLINE investigates the business concern and the politics of American Porn next time on FRONTLINE.
To order Inside the Teenage Brain on videocassette, call PBS Habitation Video at 1-800-PLAY-PBS. [$29.98 plus South&H]
National corporate funding for FRONTLINE is provided by NPR.
In Denver, Skopje, in Teheran, Omaha, in Istanbul, in Hong Kong, Belgrade, in Decatur, in Seattle, Beijing, in Pittsburgh, in Johannesburg. This is NPR News.
And by Earthlink.
Additional funding is provided by the Charles H. Hood Foundation and by these funders. [Canadian Television Fund License Fee Program, Canadian Film and Video Production Tax Credit Program]
FRONTLINE is fabricated possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.
Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/etc/script.html
0 Response to "Hen Will the Period of Rapid Brain Growth Occur Again for Baby Natalie?"
Post a Comment