Dr. Daniel Amen, M.D.: young brains

I adore Dr. Amen. He is a psychiatrist that studies brain function through imagery. (amongst many other things.) He has a new book coming out and this is an excerpt from it:

Do a Better Job of Taking Care of Younger Brains


Most people think that we become adults when we turn 18 years old. That is a societal definition, but it is not true from a brain science perspective. The prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that makes us most human (forethought, judgment, impulse control, learning from our mistakes – the stuff of maturity), does not finish developing until we are about 25 years old. The insurance industry knew this long before neuroscientists, as 25 is when your car insurance rates go down because you become a more thoughtful driver.


As the brain matures, nerve cells become wrapped in a white, fatty substance called myelin (a process known as myelinization). Like wrapping copper wires with insulation, myelin protects and helps nerve cells work up to 10 times more efficiently. Myelinization starts from the back part of the brain and works forward. The occipital lobes, involved with vision, myelinate within the first few months of life, so we can see more detail. It is not until we are much older that the prefrontal cortex becomes myelinated. Current research, including ours, suggests it is about age 25. From a study we did at the Amen Clinics, involving more than 6,300 patient scans, we found that the activity in the prefrontal cortex did not become stable until we are in our middle 20s.


Why is this so important? Since the brain is not finished developing until we are in our mid 20s, we should be doing a much better job protecting our teenage and young adult brains. Too often parents give up on their teenagers and do not supervise what they eat, allow them to get little sleep, don’t get terribly upset about early drinking or marijuana use and allow them to drive in unsafe vehicles. We allow our kids to go away to college too soon, where they engage in brain destroying behaviors, such as heavy drinking, nonstop violent video games, Internet gambling and pornography, and we are ready to toss them out of the house when they are 18, if they irritate us. I know my three adult children (31, 26, and 21) have much better judgment now than at 18. I can certainly say the same thing about my own behavior. Once this brain research was released, the Supreme court banned executing murderers who committed their crimes when they were teenagers.


Take this concept further, parents spend billions of dollars each year trying to help their children be successful. We spend money on private schools, summer camps, lessons of all sorts, including martial arts, athletics, music and dance. We spend time tutoring them or hiring tutors for them. With all the time and effort spent on helping them be their best, we should not forget the most important organ that actually tells the body how to hit the golf shot, remembers the karate kata, hears the prosody of music and improvises in modern dance. Spending time and money on youth brain health is one of the smartest investments in your child’s, teenager’s and young adult’s future. Some simple things to do for children and teens is to teach them about the importance of their brain, how to take care of it, protect it, feed it properly, get enough sleep, avoid toxic substances, such as drugs or alcohol, and share the major concepts with them from this book and my other book Making A Good Brain Great. Once properly educated on the brain I find children and teens are much better at taking care of their own brains.

You can order this book early from www.mindpressworks.com