Teen Recklessness Linked to Still-Developing Brains

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Charleston Gazette
Mara Rose Williams, Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - On the outside, teen-agers appear to be nearly grown up. But inside the skull, a vital part of their brain is closer to a child's than an adult's. New findings in neuroscience and pediatric psychiatry link brain immaturity to teens making foolish judgments and reckless decisions.

Some teens have sex too soon. Some experiment with drugs and alcohol. Some see how far their car will fly on a hilly road. Adults have long been puzzled about why otherwise "good" kids - smart kids - take deadly chances. But now scientists have made a connection. They've discovered that one of the last parts of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex - the very part responsible for self-control, judgment, emotional regulation, organization and planning.

"The teen-age brain is a work in progress," said Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who has done research on the subject. The old belief was that by the time a child reached the age of puberty and pimples, his brain's hardware was completely connected.

But by using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers got pictures that helped prove that the brain has a good deal of developing to do well beyond the start of adolescence. The brain does reach about 95 percent of its maturation by age 5. But the corpus callosum, a cable of nerves that connect the right and left halves
of the brain, continues growing beyond 20-something. The corpus callosum is linked to intelligence, consciousness and self- awareness.

The prefrontal cortex matures the most between the ages of 12 and 20. Add to this brew of disconnected neurons a healthy dose of active hormones spiked with the power of peer pressure and a need for autonomy. That's a recipe for teen-age behavior that at times is risky at best. Leawood, Kan., resident Barb Kane said she grew up in a small rural town where there was little to do but test your limits experimenting with drugs and driving cars too fast.

She said she still thinks about some of the "just plain stupid things,"even dangerous things, she did as a teen-ager. "At the time we were doing them, we didn't think about it being dangerous. You just did it. But as parents now, we stay close to our kids because we know it's tough being a teen-ager today," said Kane, whose 14-year-old daughter is a freshman in high school.

The biological root of reckless behavior might provide an answer for adults who can't understand why hill-hopping accidents have taken at least 10 lives in the Kansas City area over the last 18 months. The most recent death was that of Mistyka Fiedler, a promising 15-year-old Truman High School student. She was thrown from a car in which she was riding and run over by another in a Sept. 15 hill- jumping accident on Ringo Road in Independence.

Seven of the 10 deaths occurred in eastern Jackson County. Alcohol was not a factor in any of them. Principals at Truman and William Chrisman high schools in Independence say that year after year, they drill students on the dangers of hill jumping, drinking and driving, drug and alcohol use and other risky behavior. "Freshmen take health, and our health classes deal with healthy lifestyles and decision-making," said John Ruddy, principal at William Chrisman. "We have a teacher advisory program, which links students and teachers in a nonacademic setting so they can talk to kids about these things. And we do
programs like this every year, with each new crop of students that comes in," Ruddy said. "What I see as much as anything is that kids have more freedom than they have ever had before and they may not be ready for that freedom," he said.

The brain research suggests that Ruddy is right, that teen-agers must be trained to handle the freedoms they demand. The research says that after puberty, a pruning process takes place in the prefrontal cortex. About the age of 10, the prefrontal cortex goes through a growth spurt when neurons grow new connections. But those connections die off if they are not used.

The pruning process allows the brain to work more efficiently, researchers say. But until that process is complete, most young people don't have all the brain power needed for good judgment. One result is that many teens cannot walk away from risky activities when they are being coaxed by their peers. Michael Rapoff, a professor of pediatric psychology at University of Kansas Medical Center, said most teens lack the skills to resist peer pressure.

"Peer pressure is so powerful that it is difficult to override it by any lecture from adults," Rapoff said. Into a teen-ager's explosive boil of unbridled emotion and temptation, he said, must be added the adolescent feeling of invincibility. "Actually," he said, "teen-agers are correct in assuming that this is not a very likely time for them to die. So they tend to underestimate risks." Teens, he said, must be trained to handle peer pressure and to "think before they leap." Rapoff advises parents to talk with their teen-agers without lecturing them. Dialogue and negotiation, he said, makes the teen- agers part of the learning process.

In the fall 1998 issue of the Journal of American Psychology, neuropsychologist Deborah Yurgelun-Todd said that good judgment is learned once teens have the necessary hardware. With these latest discoveries about the brain, doctors and educators may have the key to helping teen-agers listen to that small voice within that repeats past warnings from parents, teachers or counselors. "The prefrontal cortex is a source of knowledge about what is most important in our lives," said Vermont psychiatrist Emma Bragdon, who has written several papers on adolescent behavior. "Without kids being able to be in touch with
that, they feel life has no meaning, they can be self destructive or violent toward others."

As an example of this type of behavior, psychiatrists cite such extreme aberrant adolescent behavior as the massacre at Columbine High School. Bragdon says most kids never come close to committing an act of violence, but many are involved in risky behavior. Kane, like a lot of other parents of teen-age children, expect a time may come when even her "very level-headed" teen does something foolish. "Kids will make mistakes and bad decisions," she said "The most we can really do is hope that the mistake they make won't cost them their life."