Ground-breaking research has revealed that teenagers' brains change during adolescence much more than had previously been thought.
The study, which includes new evidence of a dip in the performance of the brain at the start of puberty, was to be made public at a conference yesterday. The neuro-scientist leading the research believes it could help to explain why youngsters suffer a drop in educational achievement in their first years at secondary school, and may even explain why girls outperform boys academically.
Adolescence is a turbulent time, not just because of the physical, emotional and hormonal changes, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore from London University told a UK national conference of headteachers, but also because the teenage brain undergoes significant changes which are only now being fully understood.
Major changes in the prefrontal cortex -- responsible for decision making and social interaction -- could go some way to explaining "Kevin the Teenager" traits such as angst, aggression and mood swings, she will argue.
Based on research in her new book, The Learning Brain: Lessons for Education, Blakemore will suggest that brain research has a key role in educational policy.
Blakemore was to present her findings to the annual conference in London of the Girls' Schools Association, representing 200 private girls' schools.
She was to explain that scientists are investigating the extent the brain determines behavioral differences between adolescent boys and girls, and other factors that explain girls' educational outperformance of boys besides the fact that puberty typically starts two years later in boys. Some brain areas develop well beyond childhood, starting with two main changes at puberty.
But the latest research from Blakemore, at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London, has also thrown up startling new evidence of a dip in performance at the onset of puberty at around 11 or 12.
"This is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding changes to the brain during adolescence and what that means for learning and teaching. It is possible that brain reorganization that occurs at the onset of puberty also accounts for this educational dip, as well as the social challenges of adjusting to a larger school and a new learning environment," she concluded.
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