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.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion