The human brain doesn’t stop growing until people’s mid-20s to early-30s, and the biggest changes start to happen in the adolescent years. While some of these changes are well known, like the “insane” and “irrational” mood swings of teenagers, some are not as commonly known, such as the fact that it is natural for teens to have trouble sleeping before 10:45 PM. Everyone should be educated about the teenage brain, as it holds many interests, such as it’s spike in brain development, the vitality of sleep, and the alternation that takes place based upon gender.
The teenage brain is unlike any other stage of life, with parts of the brain being used for two, or more, different things, having to use the emotional center of the brain to make decisions, and more strange things. One example of this is the fact that teens must
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However, they do have their prefrontal cortex, which increases activity during adolescence, as well as the limbic portion of the brain. The teenage brain also holds a chemical acting as an “reward system”, known as dopamine, which increases from things as crazy as surviving dangerous situations, to things as normal as falling in love. The dopamine increase with love happens in the nucleus accumbens, which is also affected by addiction. Due to these areas being shared, it can be said that adolescent love is an addiction. However, with addiction comes withdrawal, and this is equivalent to rejection which the best cure for is finding new love. Medications such as antidepressants, however, make this harder as they increase serotonin, which decreases dopamine. Adolescents are also more likely than their adult or young child counterparts to do things like show risky and/or dangerous behavior, including getting into fights or accidents, misinterpret emotions and/or social cues, and act without thinking. While teenagers are more