Teenage brain, between liking and disappearing

Is the adolescent crisis inevitable? Why doesn't it affect boys and girls equally? What is genetic and what is cultural and educational in the risky behaviors of some adolescents?

Neurosciences allow today a rigorous answer to these and other questions. It is a fact that the brain matures gradually from puberty to youth with a precise patron saint that depends on female or male hormones. The maturation wave starts at the nape of the neck and reaches the frontal areas, which control and combine affective and cognitive aspects, around the age of 18 or 20.

This is one of the conclusions of the third video in the collection Los secretos de tu cerebro (The secrets of your brain) which, in a series of twenty works from knowledge dissemination, aims to analyze, summarize and communicate what cutting-edge neuroscience has to say about the brain. It is a project of the University of Navarra, directed by the professor of Biochemistry Natalia López Moratalla, in partnership with Carlos Bernar, specialist in Audiovisual Communication; and Enrique Sueiro, PhD in Biomedical Communication.

The video highlights that adolescents are awakened to want to know who I am and how I am. In general, their brains become very sensitive to the emotional nuances of approval, acceptance or rejection. Stress is triggered by conflicts in relationships with others or in the face of danger and is relaxed by conversations in which they share their intimacy. This is because estrogen triggers the release of dopamine - the happiness hormone - and oxytocin - the trust hormone - which in turn fuels the drive for intimacy.

In boys, the rise in testosterone makes them almost literally want to disappear from the social map. Their interest in social attention decreases, except when it comes to sports and sex. Vasopressin (male energy hormone) allows them to enjoy competitiveness and desire to maintain their independence. They need to take their place in the male hierarchy.

The maturation wave can follow its natural direction and rhythm or change when receiving the impact of experiences with different people, situations and atypical behaviors. Something that in a naturally vulnerable brain is at the origin of psychic pathologies that appear throughout life.

Although not in such a pronounced way, the brain remains exposed to changes throughout life, depending on the experiences, decisions, convictions and values that we assume. We always have the possibility to develop habits and also to remake the distorted circuits over time, with our actions.