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Responsi . . . huh?

Some scientists believe that kids simply aren't wired to care

By Meghan Mutchler Deerin Special to the Tribune Published August 12, 2001

When an otherwise reasonable adolescent takes the car out for a predawn
spin, doesn't crack a book until the night before the exam or guzzles beer
until she gets sick on the driveway, parents typically blame raging
hormones, but now scientists have hit upon a new theory.

While studying brain images of normal teenagers, neuroscientist Jay Giedd
of the National Institute of Mental Health and neurologist Paul Thompson of
the University of California at Los Angeles recently made a surprising
discovery.

They found that adolescents undergo dramatic changes in the frontal lobe,
or prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain critical to judgment, reason,
self-control and planning.

"The surprise is how late very, very drastic brain growth is taking place,"
said Thompson, who directs UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "In late
teens, the prefrontal cortex is the area that's changing the fastest, and
we know that prefrontal cortex is really known to be responsible for
inhibitions, suppressing risky behavior and controlling impulses."

The two scientists suggest that stereotypical teenage behaviors, such as
rebelliousness and risk-taking, could be caused by the rapid changes
altering the teenage brain.

"Teens often change in personality through those years, from being very
emotional risk-takers to being very self-controlled by the mid-20s,"
Thompson said. "At the same time, the prefrontal cortex, which suppresses
risky impulses and is involved in self-control, is growing the fastest.
Wouldn't it be an intriguing thing if the brain changes mirror to some
degree the change in behavior?"

If their theory proves true, it might point to a greater need for parental
involvement during the teen years, Thompson said.

"It really enforces the need for good family support," Thompson said. "You
need a lot of guidance through those years."

Giedd has gone a step further, suggesting that the types of activities
teenagers engage in, from playing video games to watching MTV, could
negatively affect their brain development. More constructive activities,
such as playing sports or a musical instrument, could have positive
repercussions for the brain.

Those inferences have drawn the ire of other experts in the field.

"Anything neuroscientists have to say about how the maturity of the frontal
lobe relates to behavior is just speculation," said John Bruer, president
of the James S. McDonnell Foundation in St. Louis, which funds research in
cognitive neuroscience. "For every kid who's supposed to have unplugged
frontal lobes, I can show you one who's playing the Mozart concerto."

Bruer, who is the author of "The Myth of the First Three Years" (Free
Press, $25), which criticized the fervor about early brain growth,
lambasted this latest theory as the next installment in pop psychology.

"I think people have a set of teenage behaviors that they don't like--take
video games--and say if you do that while your frontal lobes are developing
you'll be damaged forever, but if you play chess, you'll be a genius,"
Bruer said. "We really have to be careful in looking for purported
biological explanations for very local social and cultural phenomena we may
not like."

Mounting evidence

Meanwhile, other brain-development experts are hailing the newest theory as
another drop in a deepening pool of evidence that indicates the frontal
lobes may take two or more decades to fully develop.

"I think it's dead on," said Russell Barkley, professor of psychiatry and
neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Author of several books on attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder,
Barkley has studied brain development in children and adolescents. He and
many of his colleagues theorize that most people don't become fully
self-aware until their early 30s.

"What we tend to do is look at teens as if they see things the same way we
do and, of course, they don't," Barkley said. "This is why all kids save
their summer reading until Labor Day."

Giedd and Thompson's observations help to explain why teenagers have a time
horizon of one to three days, compared with the average 35-year-old, who
has the capacity to plan 8 to 12 weeks ahead, Barkley said.

"It's that ability to plan ahead that is the essence of the frontal lobe,"
Barkley said. "What [Giedd and Thompson] have shown is that, of course, the
frontal lobe, is not mature yet."

As a result, Barkley said, kids don't always think things through.
Typically, they don't fully anticipate the consequences of an act before
they commit it.

"That's why the juvenile court system makes decisions differently than the
adult court system," Barkley said. "It's founded on the idea that juveniles
do not have the power that adults have, to foresee the consequences of
their actions."

Experimentation common

Fortunately, run-ins with the law are not common for most teens, but
experimentation is, said Glen Ellyn psychologist Thomas Phelan, author of
"Surviving Your Adolescents: How to Manage and Let Go of Your 13- to
18-year-olds" (Child Management, $12.95).

"Most 15-year-olds are not going around shooting each other, but you have
to accept the fact that most teens are going to experiment," Phelan said.
"You want to minimize the more dangerous forms of experimentation and not
have a cow or a fit when you run across your teen doing something you don't
like."

It's the tough job of a parent to help teens grasp that there are
consequences to their actions, said Kate Jacobs, a school social worker and
mother of two teenagers in Oak Park.

"They just don't believe that any of the bad stuff that happens in the
world can happen to them," Jacobs said. "Every kid I know believes, `It
can't happen to me.'"

And when it comes to planning ahead, forget about it, Jacobs said.

As bright and responsible as 14-year-old daughter Annie and
almost-16-year-old son Frank are, "you really can't leave it to them to do it."

"My son can't keep the week in focus, not without constant reminders,"
Jacobs said.

His first month of high school was about as relaxing as a fire drill.

"We had these frantic nights when he suddenly remembered he had something
due the next day," Jacobs said.

After weeks of panic, Jacobs got him a planning book.

A gift of structure

"I give him the structure to get organized, and now he does it himself,"
Jacobs said.

Giving kids the tools to become independent is what parents should be
striving for in the teenage years, said Scott Hunter, a University of
Chicago psychology professor and director of the university's pediatric
neuropsychology service.

Whether the latest brain theory proves true, teenagers need parents who are
involved but not overprotective, said Hunter, cautioning that parents could
become too sheltering in response to the recent research.

"Part of being an adolescent and being an adult is making mistakes," Hunter
said. "The nice part of making mistakes is being able to learn from them."

The brain can't develop without an interaction between experience and the
brain's own biological processes, Hunter said.

"Growth is stimulated by experience and experience is what's enriching,"
Hunter said. "Sometimes parents do have to step in and make the right
decision, but they need to help their adolescent develop the capacity for
independence."

And, though teenagers generally are more likely to be impulsive and make
inappropriate decisions, that tendency varies widely among individuals,
making it unlikely that a rapidly sculpting prefrontal cortex is the only
culprit, Hunter said.

"Brain development is probably not the only reason," Hunter said.

Genetics and personality help determine how a teen will behave.

Previous experiences also play a role.

"A lot of us have experiences when we're younger that help us make more
mature decisions when we're teens," Hunter said.

Thompson agreed that a combination of factors, including a changing
prefrontal cortex, might contribute to stereotypical teenage behaviors.

"It needn't just be one or the other," Thompson said. "Now, we're well on
the way toward piecing all these things together."

Whether it turns out to be hormones, a transforming brain or something else
altogether, the idea that teens aren't quite done yet isn't news to most
parents.

"I'm very happy to hear that the scientists are going to prove what I
already know," said Cathleen Bylina of Chicago, a college counselor at Carl
Sandburg High School in Orland Park and mother of a 20-year-old and a
17-year-old. "They're going to act like they don't need you, but they
really do."

Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune