adolescence

Canadian study finds causal link between time playing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symptoms at age 13

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Recent stud­ies have linked screen time — includ­ing video game play — to con­cern­ing out­comes in chil­dren, includ­ing low self-esteem, low life sat­is­fac­tion, and depres­sive symp­toms. Screen time has also been found to be cor­re­lat­ed with symp­toms of ADHD in chil­dren and ado­les­cents, even when ear­li­er atten­tion dif­fi­cul­ties are tak­en into account.

These find­ings sug­gest that exces­sive video game play may be a risk fac­tor for the devel­op­ment of ADHD symp­toms. Oth­er research sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reverse cau­sa­tion, i.e., that ADHD symp­toms pre­dicts the devel­op­ment of exces­sive video game play. [Read more…] about Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

New book highlights continued brain development throughout adolescence, even into our 20s

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– Dr. Sarah-Jane Blakemore

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Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Probes Myths About the Teenage Brain (Edu­ca­tion Week):

“We often think ear­ly child­hood is this dra­mat­ic win­dow of learn­ing and devel­op­ment in the brain, and you’re high­light­ing ado­les­cence as a dif­fer­ent kind of win­dow. Can you talk a lit­tle bit about that?
I was told when I was an under­grad­u­ate that the human brain pret­ty much stopped devel­op­ing after mid-child­hood. From [mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing] of liv­ing brains, we’ve dis­cov­ered that that’s not true at all [Read more…] about New book high­lights con­tin­ued brain devel­op­ment through­out ado­les­cence, even into our 20s

Study debunks the “earlier is always better” myth about brain development and cognitive training

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teenagers_collegeGood News: You’ve Got a Bet­ter Brain Than You Think (Time):

“Get­ting old­er? No worries…When does our learn­ing poten­tial start to go soft? A new paper pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence sug­gests that it might be lat­er than we thought. [Read more…] about Study debunks the “ear­li­er is always bet­ter” myth about brain devel­op­ment and cog­ni­tive training

Brain scan study finds links between adolescent brain development and mental health disorders

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– “Brain hubs”, cour­tesy of Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge

Scans reveal how teenage brain devel­ops (BBC News):

“The team from Cam­bridge’s depart­ment of psy­chi­a­try scanned the brains of 300 peo­ple between the ages of 14 and 24. While the areas asso­ci­at­ed with the basic func­tion­ing of the body such as vision, hear­ing and move­ment are ful­ly devel­oped by ado­les­cence, the areas asso­ci­at­ed with com­plex thought and deci­sion mak­ing are still chang­ing [Read more…] about Brain scan study finds links between ado­les­cent brain devel­op­ment and men­tal health disorders