WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? AN INTRODUCTION TO ADOLESCENT COGNITION AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

1. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? AN INTRODUCTION TO ADOLESCENT COGNITION AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

2. GOALS • Increase understanding of adolescent cognitive, development • Introduce brain structures, circuitry, and functions • Increase understanding of impact of child abuse on brain development • Increase understanding of the critical differences between adult and adolescent thinking • Increase understanding of adolescent high risk behaviors. • Increase understanding of the effects of alcohol • Discuss ways that preventionists and communities can support healthy adolescent development

3. DEFINING ADOLESCENCE

4. ADOLESCENCE • Awkward period between sexual maturational and the attainment of adult roles and responsibilities • Begins with the domain of physical/biological changes related to puberty, but it ends in the domain of social roles • Encompasses the transition from the status of a child (one who requires monitoring) to that of an adult (responsible for behavior) • From approximately age 10 - 20

5. ADOLESCENCE • Adolescence is much broader and longer than the teenage years alone (has changed significantly over the past 150 years) • Adolescence now stretches across more than a decade, with pubertal onset often beginning by age 9-12 and adult roles delayed until mid twenties. • In 187 societies, the interval between puberty and achieving adult status was typically 2 years for girls and 4 years for boys

7. ADOLESCENCE • Most elements of cognitive development show a trajectory that follows age and experience rather than the timing of puberty • Research demonstrates a significant positive correlation between pubertal maturation and socio-emotional system (e.g., sensation seeking)

8. PUBERTY Romantic motivation Sexual interest Emotional intensity Sleep cycle changes Appetite Risk for affective disorders (girls) Increase in risk taking, sensation seeking, and novelty seeking AGE/EXPERIENCE Planning Logic, reasoning Inhibitory control Problem solving Understanding consequences Affect regulation Goal setting and pursuit Judgment and abstract thinking ADOLESCENCE

9. ADOLESCENCE • Overall morbidity and mortality rates increase 200-300% between middle childhood and late adolescence/early adulthood • Onset of problems such as nicotine dependence, alcohol and drug use, poor health habits, etc. that will show up as mortality in adulthood • Many adult onset problems such as depression can be traced to early episodes in adolescence

10. Theories of Cognitive Development Piaget • Concrete operations - begins to think logically, operations are associated with personal experience and are only carried out on concrete objects, • From about age 6 to early adolescence • Formal operations • Thinking about possibilities, • Thinking multi-dimensionally, • Thinking about abstract concepts.

11. Theories of Cognitive Development • Formal Operations Stage • Early adolescence – has a “now you see it, now you don’t” quality. • Becomes consolidated in mid to late adolescence • All adolescents have potential to develop Formal Operations thinking, not all do. • There are differing degrees of development. Some never leave the “emergent stage” seen in early adolescence. • There large gaps between individuals’ logical reasoning abilities and their actual use of logical reasoning in everyday situations.

12. Test: Are you Smarter than 5th Grader? Would you prefer to attempt to pull a lucky lottery ticket from an envelope where your chances are: (a) 1 out of 10 chances of getting the ticket; (b) 10 out of 100 chances of getting the ticket; (c) 100 out of 1,000 chances of getting the ticket; (d) Any of the above; (e) None of the above.

13. Theories of Cognitive Development • Environmental considerations • Parental Attachment may affect development of formal operations • Explicit instruction affects formal operations • Relevance (familiar situation) of the task used to assess logical reasoning is an important factor that influences performance once competence exists.

14. Theories of Cognitive Development • The Piagetian perspective has waned in recent years. • Not stagelike – gradual like a ramp instead of stairs. • Skills that are employed • more often by older than younger children, • by some adolescents more often than by others, and • by individuals when they are in certain situations more often than when they are in other situations.

15. Theories of Cognitive Development Information processing view of adolescent thinking • Is a perspective on cognition that attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process (such as memory).

16. Theories of Cognitive Development • Attention • Selectively attend • Divided attention • Better able to stay focused on complicated tasks. • Memory • Speed • Organization • Metacognition

17. Theories of Cognitive Development • Most basic information-processing skills increase throughout childhood and early adolescence and level off around age 15. • At 15 adolescents are just as proficient as adults in these basic skills. • Still lacking in, • ability to plan ahead, • judging the relative costs and benefits of a risky decision • Coordination of cognition and emotion when feelings might interfere with logical reasoning. • Brain maturation process may not allow the development of these abilities to be complete until mid-twenties.

18. CHANGES IN COGNITION • Adolescents are better able than children to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thought to what is real. • Adolescents are better able than children to think about abstract things • Adolescents think more often than children about the process of thinking itself. • Adolescents’ thinking, compared to children, is more often multidimensional, rather than limited to a single issue. • Adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than as absolute

19. CHANGES IN COGNITION • Deductive reasoning – a type of logical reasoning in which one draws logically necessary conclusions from a general set of promises, or givens. • All hockey players wear mouth guards • Kim is a hockey player • Does Kim wear a mouth guard? • Inferences are guaranteed to be true by virtue of their inherent logic. • Seldom used before adolescence

20. CHANGES IN COGNITION • Deductive Reasoning depends on: • Inhibiting Prepotent Response • Prepotent response - having priority over other response tendencies especially by virtue of maturational primacy, recentness of emission or evocation, repetition with positive reinforcement, or greater motivational charge • Adolescents’ develop an ability to catch themselves before they incorrectly answer a question or draw a conclusion. • Controlled by a region of the brain that develops during adolescence.

21. CHANGES IN COGNITION • Inductive Reasoning – Reasoning that involves drawing an inference from the evidence that one has. • Kim, John, Julie, Tom, Liz, and Kendra are hockey players. • Kim, John, Julie, Tom, Liz, and Kendra all wear mouth guards. • Do all hockey players wear mouth guards? • Used by people of all ages. • Has differing degrees of certainty. • Used in everyday situations.

22. Test: Are you Smarter than 5th Grader? • All hockey players wear mouth guards • Kim wears a mouth guards. • Is Kim a hockey player? • Yes • No Did you use • Deductive reasoning • Inductive reasoning • Neither

23. CHANGES IN COGNITION Hypothetical thinking – emergence of “if then” thinking. • Used to go beyond what is directly observable to abstract concepts. • Used to plan ahead, • See future consequences, • Provide alternative explanations of events.

24. CHANGES IN COGNITION Metacognition – thinking about thinking. • Monitoring your own cognition. • Assessing your comprehension before continuing reading. • Using a strategy to remember something • Every Good Boy Does Fine = Lines of a treble clef • Knowing why they know allows them to think differently and solve problems more effectively. • Increases in • introspection (thinking about own emotions), • self consciousness (thinking about how others think about us), • and intellectualization (thinking about our own thoughts).

25. CHANGES IN COGNITION New cognitive abilities that the adolescent is not yet accustom may lead to: • Adolescent Egocentrism – Extreme self-absorption that results in two problems: • Imaginary audience – such a heightened sense of self-consciousness that he/she thinks that their behavior is the focus of everyone’s attention. • More intense in girls • Peaks about age 15 • Related to development of brain function – part that processes social information.

26. CHANGES IN COGNITION • Personal Fable – revolves around egocentric belief that her or his experiences are unique. For example: • Mother cannot understand what it feels like to end a romantic relationship. • Sexually active teen who simply believes that she (or girlfriend) won’t get pregnant. • Reckless driver who believes that he/she can defy the laws of nature • Some of this extends into adulthood. For example: • Ask an adult smoker if he or she is aware of the scientific evidence against smoking.

27. CHANGES IN COGNITION Thinking in multiple dimensions • Children tend to think of one aspect at a time adolescents see things through more complicated lenses. • Sarcasm – multiple meanings • That was the most interesting lecture I’ve ever heard! • I can’t wait to hear more! • Ability to understand multiple dimension begins around 9 to 13 and continues to increase throughout adolescence.

28. CHANGES IN COGNITION • Adolescent Relativism • Children tend to see things in absolute terms. • Adolescents are more likely to question “facts” as absolute truths. • This can create many concerns for parents. • But what’s going on inside the youth that may contribute to these changes?

29. BRAIN STRUCTURES AND FUNCTIONS

30. CAVEATS • New discoveries—research is still in its infancy • Do NOT over-interpret or interpret too simplistically • Most research has been conducted on animals—we assume the information transfers to people • Behavior is the result of complex interactions among individual, environment, genetics, situation, cultural expectations, and numerous other factors

31. Brain weighs approximately 3 pounds Brain has approximately 100 billion neurons and 1 trillion supporting cells Neurons grow and organize themselves into efficient systems that operate a lifetime Brain controls ALL activities Emotion and cognition are intertwined Neurons can re-route circuits Brain and environment involved in delicate duet Brain never stops adapting and changing BRAIN FACTS

32. BRAIN STRUCTURES • Brain is an organ of behavior—both overt behavior and consciousness are manifestations of the work of the brain • Different regions of the brain regulate different functions. Our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are the result of how the different parts of the brain work together to process information and memories

33. Dorsolateral Ventromedial Ventromedial

35. FRONTAL LOBE • Seat of personality, judgment, reasoning, problem solving, and rational decision making • Provides for logic and understanding of consequences • Governs impulsivity, aggression, ability to organize thoughts, and plan for the future • Controls capacity for abstraction, attention, cognitive flexibility, and goal persistence • Undergoes significant changes during adolescence — not fully developed until mid 20’s

36. FRONTAL LOBE • As the “prefrontal cortex” area of the frontal lobe matures, through experience and practice, teens can reason better, develop more impulse control, and make better judgments • Prefrontal cortex is one of the last areas of the brain to fully develop • Increased need for structure, mentoring, guidance

37. TEMPORAL LOBES • Responsible for hearing, understanding speech, and forming an integrated sense of self • Responsible for sorting new information and for short term memory • Contains the limbic-reward system (amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus acumbens, and vta) • Matures around ages 18-19

38. TEMPORAL LOBE/LIMBIC SYSTEM • Limbic system regulates emotions and motivations—particularly those related to survival—such as fear, anger, and pleasure (sex and eating) • Feelings of pleasure/reward are very powerful and self-sustaining. Pleasurable behaviors activate a circuit of specialized nerve cells in the limbic area that is devoted to producing and regulating pleasure called the reward system

39. REWARD SYSTEM For Example: • Drugs of abuse activate the reward system in the limbic area of the brain—producing powerful feelings of pleasure • Fool brain into thinking that they are necessary for survival • Desire to repeat drug using behavior is strong • Drugs of abuse can/do exert powerful control over behavior because they act directly on the more primitive, survival limbic structures— over-ride the frontal cortex in controlling our behavior

40. Structure • We will primarily be talking about two areas of the developing brain: • Cognitive Control System – located in the prefronal cortex (PFC). • The socio-emotional system – encompassing the limbic system.

41. BRAIN CIRCUITRY

42. Brain Circuitry • NEURON —specialized cell designed to transmit information to other nerve cells and muscles • Each neuron consists of a cell body, axon, and dendrite • Axon– an electricity conducting fiber that carries information away from the cell body • Dendrite– receives messages from other neurons • Synapse– contact point where one neuron “communicates” with another neuron

44. NEUROTRANSMITTERS • All messages are passed to connected neurons through the form of chemicals called neurotransmitters • Neurotransmitters are released from the end of the axon, cross the synapse, and bind to the specific receptors on the dendrites of the targeted neuron

45. Neurotransmitters Involved In Risk-taking • Dopamine – among other things, produces pleasure and desire through the “reward system” and is involved with social information processing. • Significant changes in the amount and location of receptors at puberty • Shape social-emotional development • Increases sensation seeking at this period • Decrease of inhibitory control of dopamine release in prefrontal cortex • Regions activated during exposure to social stimuli overlap with regions sensitive to reward system. • SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE by PEERS seems to be processed in ways similar to other sorts of non-social rewards (e.g., addictive drugs). • This helps to explain why risk taking happens in the context of PEERS

46. Neurotransmitters Involved In Risk-taking • Increased temporal gap between puberty (change in dopaminergic system) and full maturation of the cognitive control system • Places “early maturers” at increased risk. • Early maturing youth report higher rates of alcohol and drug use, delinquency, and problem behavior. • Age of experimentation with AOD, and sexual debut has declined over time, consistent with historical decline in age of pubertal onset.

47. Neurotransmitters Involved In Risk-taking • Oxytocin – neurotransmitter that is also a gonadal hormone • Significant changes at puberty • Influence on social memory, social information processing, and social bonding • Explains adolescence heightened awareness of other “imaginary audience.”

48. Adolescent Brain Development • Early adolescents are not very skilled at distinguishing the subtlety of facial expression (excitement, anger, fear, sadness, etc.)—results in a lot of miscues—leads to lack of communication and inappropriate behavior • Heightened social anxiety – “Do you really think she likes me?” • Differences in processing, organization, and responding to information/events leads to misperceptions and misunderstanding verbal and non-verbal cues

49. Influence of Peers • Adolescent risk-taking is far more likely to happen in groups. • Peer drug use is one of, if not the, strongest predictor of individual drug use. • Presence of same-age peers in car substantially increases risk of accidents • Sexual activity increases when youth believes peers are sexually active • Adolescents far more likely to commit crimes in groups

50. Influence of Peers • FMRI shows presence of peers activates areas of brain (socio-emotional network) that are not activated when youth is alone. • Same area that is activated by exposure to reward system. • Peers make potentially rewarding-and potentially risky-activities even more rewarding. • Peeks around 15 and then begins to decline