The admission of their children into their Teens is a holistic experience that invigorates all the senses. You can see it in the clothes, the hairstyle, the. You can smell it, because either no more or three times of the day and showered.

And you can hear it, because the times are over, that the family was in the holiday music selection. The Paradox of the teenager: Though he returns to his innermost being loud and garish to the outside, is a mystery, what is going on inside of him.

Here is a natural connection between parents and their neuro-scientists who want to both look just like in the head of the child, but may not be, once more, unrestricted access to the room. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Professor of Cognitive neuroscience in London, has written a book that aims at the large group of long-suffering parents, for whom “the teenage brain” is a large black box.

Here is the Input (music, chat, news, alcohol), the Output (the’re all giggly around, Whispering, babbling). What happens in between, remains a mystery.

The behavior research has other possibilities, for example, the animal experiment. “This graph shows that half-grown mice in the company of Cage mates drink more alcohol than when they are alone. Adult animals always take about the same amount.“

mice do When even irrational things, is proved time and again that adolescence is a pretty universal Phase. You may ask, what experiments need to drink beast in a coma, if you could examine the pubescent Monster directly.

However, scientific Experimentation, in contrast to the teenagers borders. What effect does alcohol have on the developing brain?

“The best way would be to recruit two groups of similar Teens with similar socio-economic Background, similar IQ value, and so on – and not to give the drink a in the course of adolescence much, of the other.” But: “Would, would, Bicycle chain” (Lothar Matthäus). A Guinea pig would be, at least for the first group it is easy to find, but unfortunately, the ethics Council, by contrast, would probably have something.

Since you can’t dissect the teenage brains in bodies, the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the main Instrument. Just using the example of alcohol consumption is a fundamental Problem in the Interpretation of brain scans.

Thus, it was found that in the case of alcohol young people drink in certain parts of the prefrontal Cortex are less involved in self-control and inhibition. This is a cause of excessive drinking or a consequence? At the end of the finding remains that constant Drinking is so good for the bulb.

It is noteworthy that all correlations between the development of brain areas and particular behaviors connect to, for example, between increased risk appetite and the growth of the limbic system. A typical puberty phenomenon is the rapidly increasing ability to introspection, i.e. self-perception – and thus the need to constant reassurance of one’s own role in the social context: Am I cool enough? Do I look good? I’m wearing the right clothes?

the ability for introspection, depends on the growth of the right rust rolateralen prefrontal Cortex, is, as a General knowledge fascinating. But that still does not understand why their child is in collapse is suddenly on the verge of neurons together, or his parents are terribly embarrassed. Maybe it is up to this day, just with the wrong temporal lobe.

Why all the effort?

brain research is very exciting. As an educational aid or universal key to the hidden inner life of young people, you cannot help but not a lot. Blakemore concludes that it is primarily a matter of individual differences: “The average Teenager.”

then Why all the effort? For the clueless parents, the shock remains prayer: “Lord, send brain from the sky!”

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: “The Teenage brain”. S. Fischer, 304 P., 18 €.