DUDE, WHERE’S MY FRONTAL CORTEX?

Long read, so very worth it.

I was struck by this passage encountered one late night in Sapolsky's brilliant Behave:

Chapter 6 discusses experiments where a subject plays a game with two other people and is manipulated into feeling that she is being left out. This activates her amygdala, periaqueductal gray (that ancient brain region that helps process physical pain), anterior cingulate, and insula, an anatomical picture of anger, anxiety, pain, disgust, sadness. Soon afterward her PFC activates as rationalizations kick in—“This is just a stupid game; I have friends; my dog loves me.” And the amygdala et al. quiet down. And what if you do the same to someone whose frontal cortex is not fully functional? The amygdala is increasingly activated; the person feels increasingly distressed. What neurological disease is involved? None. This is a typical teenager.

"Oh, that's why, he's literally brain damaged," I thought to myself. Such terrific explanatory power, I could hardly wait to get to chapter 6 which, it turns out, is titled "ADOLESCENCE; OR, DUDE, WHERE’S MY FRONTAL CORTEX?" I found that so very helpful in explaining why you-know-who acts you-know-how that I'm sharing these many additional quotes with you, my parents of teenager readers:

…the frontal cortex makes you do the harder thing when it’s the right thing to do…. The frontal cortex is the last brain region to fully mature, with the most evolutionarily recent subparts the very last. Amazingly, it’s not fully online until people are in their midtwenties. You’d better bet this factoid will be relevant to the chapter about adolescence.

All this takes energy, and when it is working hard, the frontal cortex has an extremely high metabolic rate and rates of activation of genes related to energy production. Willpower is more than just a metaphor; self-control is a finite resource.

Is resisting lying a demanding task for your frontal cortex, or is it effortless habit? As we’ll see, honesty often comes more easily thanks to automaticity.

If by adolescence limbic, autonomic, and endocrine systems are going full blast while the frontal cortex is still working out the assembly instructions, we’ve just explained why adolescents are so frustrating, great, asinine, impulsive, inspiring, destructive, self-destructive, selfless, selfish, impossible, and world changing.

Older teenagers experience emotions more intensely than do children or adults…. For example, they are more reactive to faces expressing strong emotions.

So adolescents take more risks and stink at risk assessment. But it’s not just that teenagers are more willing to take risks. After all, adolescents and adults don’t equally desire to do something risky and the adults simply don’t do it because of their frontal cortical maturity. There is an age difference in the sensations sought—adolescents are tempted to bungee jump; adults are tempted to cheat on their low-salt diet.

Novelty craving permeates adolescence; it is when we usually develop our stable tastes in music, food, and fashion, with openness to novelty declining thereafter.

This suggests that in adolescents strong rewards produce exaggerated dopaminergic signaling, and nice sensible rewards for prudent actions feel lousy.

…adolescents are more social and more complexly social than children or adults [and thus feel a] frantic need to belong.

Rejection hurts adolescents more, producing that stronger need to fit in.

An open mind is a prerequisite for an open heart, and the adolescent hunger for new experiences makes possible walking miles in lots of other people’s shoes.

Obviously, the adolescent years are not just about organizing bake sales to fight global warming. Late adolescence and early adulthood are when violence peaks, whether premeditated or impulsive murder, Victorian fisticuffs or handguns, solitary or organized (in or out of a uniform), focused on a stranger or on an intimate partner. And then rates plummet. As has been said, the greatest crime-fighting tool is a thirtieth birthday.

An oft-repeated fact about adolescents is how “emotional intelligence” and “social intelligence” predict adult success and happiness better than do IQ or SAT scores. It’s all about social memory, emotional perspective taking, impulse control, empathy, ability to work with others, self-regulation.

Heavy childhood exposure to media violence predicts higher levels of aggression in young adults of both sexes (“aggression” ranging from behavior in an experimental setting to violent criminality)…. The link between exposure to childhood media violence and increased adult aggression is stronger than the link between lead exposure and IQ, calcium intake and bone mass, or asbestos and laryngeal cancer.

Very helpful. And if you want a similarly telling explanation for why the rich (right) seem so puzzlingly unconcerned for the poor, here's a bunch more quotes.