Science Tackles Mystery of the Teenage Brain

LONDON - Science may have split the atom and put a man on the moon but it has yet to solve the mysteries of the teenage brain.

A research team at Cambridge University plans to fix that by scanning 300 young people, aged 14 to 24, to determine how their brains change as they grow older.

In a study that could help identify the emergence of mental disorders in young adults, the subjects will also be tested on their inclination toward impulsive and risk-taking behavior.

Advances in M.R.I. scanning technology will allow the researchers to study gradual changes as the brain adapts to powerful hormonal signals as individuals mature, helping them to control impulsive behavior.

“Arguably we've all been there and it's a very awkward and complex and confusing time of life,” Dr. Becky Inkster, a Cambridge neuroscientist, told the BBC.

“So by the use of imaging and other tools we can really tap into these features of the adolescent brain and understand how they develop over time as they become a young adult,” she said.

Generations of parents have endured the angst and mood swings of teenagers. New research suggests they are the product of substantive differences between the brains of young people and those of adults.

“We once thought that the brain was fully formed by the end of childhood, but research has shown that adolescence is a time of profound brain growth and change,” according to The Teenage Brain, a British blog.

Teenagers' behavior has come under more scrutiny lately as some have suggested that the adolescent brain of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the younger of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, allowed him to be drawn into conspiracy by his elder brother.

The Cambridge scientists believe the new research could provide a better understanding not only of behavior but also of how long-term mental problems can emerge in the teenage years.

Ed Bullmore, a professor of psychiatry at Cambridge, told the BBC, “By building understanding I think we can get away from the idea that mental illness in young people is primarily a moral problem or a random disaster and try and move understanding more toward a rational direction.”