Maturation of the adolescent brain
By Mariam Arain, M. Haque, Lina Johal, Puja Mathur, Wynand Nel, A. Rais, R. Sandhu, Sushil Kr. Sharma. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 2013
1,113 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Adolescence is the developmental epoch during which children become adults – intellectually, physically, hormonally, and socially. Adolescence is a tumultuous time, full of changes and transformations. The pubertal transition to adulthood involves both gonadal and behavioral maturation. Magnetic resonance imaging studies have discovered that myelinogenesis, required for proper insulation and efficient neurocybernetics, continues from childhood and the brain’s region-specific neurocircuitry remains structurally and functionally vulnerable to impulsive sex, food, and sleep habits. The maturation of the adolescent brain is also influenced by heredity, environment, and sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone), which play a crucial role in myelination. Furthermore, glutamatergic neurotransmission predominates, whereas gamma-aminobutyric acid neurotransmission remains under construction, and this might be responsible for immature and impulsive behavior and neurobehavioral excitement during adolescent life. The adolescent population is highly vulnerable to driving under the influence of alcohol and social maladjustments due to an immature limbic system and prefrontal cortex. Synaptic plasticity and the release of neurotransmitters may also be influenced by environmental neurotoxins and drugs of abuse including cigarettes, caffeine, and alcohol during adolescence. Adolescents may become involved with offensive crimes, irresponsible behavior, unprotected sex, juvenile courts, or even prison. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the major cause of death among the teenage population is due to injury and violence related to sex and substance abuse. Prenatal neglect, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption may also significantly impact maturation of the adolescent brain. Pharmacological interventions to regulate adolescent behavior have been attempted with limited success. Since several factors, including age, sex, disease, nutritional status, and substance abuse have a significant impact on the maturation of the adolescent brain, we have highlighted the influence of these clinically significant and socially important aspects in this report.
Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b5ba5453c0b9b35189e34dcb7247c17a0654c02e
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Citations in the corpus
- The developmental trajectory of functional excitation‐inhibition balance relates to language abilities in autistic and allistic children (2023, result): “…in autistic pre-adolescents is in line with previous findings showing major developments in the inhibitory (GABAergic) system during (early) adolescence (Arain et al., 2013; Kilb, 2012; Silveri et al., 2013) and evidence for GABAergic differences in autistic children (DeMayo et al., 2021).”
- Electrocorticography to Investigate Age-Related Brain Lateralization on Pediatric Motor Inhibition (2022, background): “Many studies suggested changes in the white matter (WM) volume was thought to reflect the process of increased myelination, whereas myelination increases the speed of nerve impulse propagation across the brain’s region-specific neurocircuitry, especially in the prefrontal cortex, up until 24 years o”