The Teenage Brain

When children reach teenage some series of physical changes take place causing emotional problems. What I didn´t really know was the fact that through this period brain also experiences some modifications that are the actual reason for teen mood and temperament alteration.  After watching “the teenage brain” program I learned and improved my knowledge in this area. The adolescent annoying and impulsive attitude is understandable and is part of growth and development process. There are also some patterns that can be appreciated in most of the cases. Changes in sleeping hours, relationship with parents, and redistribution of time spent alone, with friends, and family is a characterizing trait seen in several persons passing through this age.

 

All the previous variations can be attributed to the alterations taking place in the teen brain. As body, brain develops during puberty, letting behind a kid and becoming more like an adult. The Prefrontal Cortex which is in charge of personality, behavior, solving problems, and controlling emotions, is the last part to develop. During teenage this brain section suffers many changes that can be observed in teen’s attitude.  Also, I find out how teenagers are often taking big risk by putting in practice danger activities where a bad move can finish in an accident that can affect the head. In general this video helped me to understand and be aware of the importance of brain development during these ages.

Journal: How our brain works?

1. When talking of the brain the word hemisphere refers to one of the two sides of this organ which is divided by the corpus callosum from the otherone.
2. The major diferences between the left and right side of the brain is that the first one is in charge of exact things as math, language, logic, and also the right side of the body, while the second one deals with the left side of the body and things as emotions, art, music, and intuition.
3.The corpus callosum is  is a group of nerve fibers that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and is responsible for most of the communication between the two.
4.  Pierre Paul Broca was a French surgeon that studied the brain of a patient with a speech impairment after his death. He concluded that there is an specific part of the brain in charge of speech production, whic was called Broca's Area.
5. Roger Sperry was a northamerican neuropsychologist, and neurobiologist who won the Noble prize for his studies. He developed the idea of "split brain" which was about cutting the corpus callosum for curing epilepsy patients.This practicing brought problems because each side of the brain complement, and the result was two different brains with no communication.  After this activity the idea that the left and right side of the brain are responsible for different tasks was confirmed.
6.Carl Wernicke was a polish psychiatrist and neuropathologist who studied a patient thet had suffered a stroke and although the man was able to speak and his hearing was ok, he could not understand what was said to him. This study led to the discoverment of the Wernicke's Area which is located in the left hemisphere and works with the broca´s area. It is in charge of language comprenhension.
7. The occipital lobe is most responsible for vision.
8. The temporal lobe is most responsible for hearing and language.
9. The fronl lobe is most responsible for performing math calculations.
10. The frontal lobe is most responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse control.

http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/652/Carl-Wernicke.html#ixzz10bmgWe8w
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html
http://morphonix.com/software/education/science/brain/game/specimens/hemispheres.html
http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/windex/g/def_wernickesar.htm

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was an american construction foreman famous for surviving to an accident where his brain suffered severe damage. His experience was useful for understanding the relation between personality and the function of the front parts of the brain. One 13 of September of 1848, an explosion made his tamping iron pass through his head blewing his eye, affecting his front part of the brain, and leaving a hole in his head. After this serious injury his personality changed in a drastic way. Before the accident Gage was an intelligent and efficient person, who had good social relations in his work. Time later after this event, he became an irreberent and fitful person, who irritate his work partners.

Gage accident was very useful in the study of  psychology and medicine, after the event psychologist conclude that the front part of the brain works with personality, and an accident which affects this part may cause changes in a person attitude and way of relating with others. These studies led to the idea of brain localization. Brain localization idea, states that each part of the brain is in charge of a different task and has different functions. Also the brain study helped to understand and develope the concept of brain lateralization. This concept divides the brain into two similar but with different functions hemispheres. The left hemisphere deals with actual facts and things such as concepts, structure, discipline and rules, time sequences, mathematics, categorizing, logic and rationality and deductive reasoning, knowledge, details, definitions, planning and goals, words, productivity and efficiency, science and technology, stability, physical activity, and the right side of the body. The right hemisphere includes intuition, feelings and sensitivity, emotions, daydreaming and visualizing, creativity,color, awareness, first impressions, rhythm, spontaneity and impulsiveness, the physical senses, risk-taking, flexibility and variety, learning by experience, relationships, play and sports, introversion, humor, and the left side of the body.

http://agelessmarketing.typepad.com/ageless_marketing/2006/01/an_aging_societ.html

http://www.theorderoftime.com/politics/cemetery/stout/h/brain-la.htm

http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/Pgstory.phpdu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/Pgstory.php

Nature vs. Nurture: Inteligence

When talking about nature vs. nurture debate, intelligence comes to be a really polemical topic. There are many ones who state that it come in genes and is inherited, while they are many others who defend the position of intelligence being an environmental factor. Through time persons experience different situation and experiment different things which can develop brain activity. Also being born in an academical and with rigorous discipline atmosphere, should influence the level of intelligence. An important step for developing intelligence is to study and be a good student. In the other hand, there are many cases where a  baby has intellectual actions that a baby should not have. There also exist some kids who actually are not good students and are not disciplined, but they carry the intelligence in their bodies.This is the point where I can state that intelligence is a factor that depends of genes and in other cases of environment.

For proving intelligence to be a genetic heritage, scientist collected pairs of separated twins and reunited them while testing their personalities and IQs. Also they tried by comparing the IQs of adopted people with those of their adopted parents and their biological parents or their siblings. The results were: Same person tested twice 87%, Identical twins reared together 86%, Identical twins reared apart 76%, Fraternal twins reared together 55% ,Biological siblings reared together 47% (studies show that reared apart about 24%), Parents and children living together 40%, Parents and children living apart 31%, Adopted children living together 0%, Unrelated people living apart 0%. (Ridley, 1999, p.83) As it is shown twins, either together or separated,  had a high percentage of similarity, while adopted children and unrelated people had low results. This experiment highly suggests it should be nature.

Testing if the factor of intelligence and IQ was nurture, scientist did an experiment in which they noticed that in many countries the IQ level is incrementig by 3 points each decade. James Flynn, the principal author of this research attributed the results to ads, posters, videogame and TV graphics and other things rather than written things which were the only source of learning in the past. He suggests that children experience a much richer visual environment than in older times, developing in a better way children IQ. As it is shown in the previous experiment the environment had been influencing in a big way human inteligence. This also suggests that depending on the school level, the teacher, and even the oraganization and interest shown, a student will develop their brain and intelligence.

"No single environmental factor seems to have a large influence on IQ. Variables widely believed to be important are usually weak....Even though many studies fail to find strong environmental effects....most of the factors studied do influence IQ in the direction predicted by the investigator....environmental effects are multifactorial and largely unrelated to each other."Bouchard & Segal (1985), p.452. Some biologist and psychologist, such as the ones in the previous quote, agreed with the idea that the level of inteligence of a person, or IQ, can be influenced in certain way by expierences, but it is not a completely or a major factor, it shuold be working together with genetic staff.

There are good different investigations that defend either nurture or nature when talking about intelligence. Very related people living together and not leaving together, such as twin, and parents and sons, show a similar result in their IQ test, while non related and adopted persons show from few to no similarities. In the other hand they are studies that how environmental things as school, t.v., video games, posters, and other visual things affect the development of a child IQ. Also some scientists tried to prove that intelligence depends on both factors by stating that environment can affect somehow someones´ IQ, but it is not a major cause. Intelligence is a topic of nature vs. nurture debate were genetics and nature factors complement each other for its existance and development.

Bouchard, T. J., & Segal, N. L. (1985). Environment and IQ. In B.B. Wolman (Ed.). Handbook of Intelligence: Theories, Measurements, and Applications (pp. 391-464). New York: John Wiley.


Ridley, M. (1999). Genome: The autobiography of a species in 23 chapters. London: Fourth Estate Ltd.

http://wilderdom.com/personality/L4-1IntelligenceNatureVsNurture.html

www.elsevier.com/wps/find/...cws.../description
www.intelligencesquared.com