The secret evolutionary benefits of the adolescent brain

Teenagers, uh, what are they like? They have a reputation for being difficult, reckless, and self-centered, but these negative stereotypes are certainly not the whole story. Although most other animals leave the nest soon after puberty ends, no animal, including our closest primate relatives, undergoes puberty for as long as we do. Why did humans evolve such a unique life stage? A closer look at the teenage brain reveals that it offers hidden evolutionary advantages.

Research over the past two decades has shown that the cerebral cortex, a brain region central to high-level processing and cognitive control, Continues to grow until early to mid-20s. In contrast, reward-sensitive regions, including an area called the ventral striatum, are firing on all cylinders by the mid-teens. this is, The adolescent brain is noisy and unbalanced., whose excessive reward system leads to unstable and suboptimal decision making. Early assessments of adolescents' cognitive abilities seemed to support this. “Sometimes adolescents are able to perform tasks well, and sometimes they are not. It was a mess.” Evelyn Krohn At Leiden University in the Netherlands. But more recent research has found that adolescents may have extraordinary abilities and just need the right kinds of tasks to show off their skills.

For example, in 2022, linda wilbrecht Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues asked 291 volunteers between the ages of 8 and 30 to…