Your Brain
What's Happening to my Brain?
In your teenage years up until you're in your mid-20's your brain goes through a period of intensive remodeling. Brain change depends on age, experience and hormonal changes in puberty. Here we try and help you understand what is going on in your brain and how that may impact your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
Adolescence is a time of significant growth and development inside the teenage brain.
The main change is that unused connections in the thinking and processing part of your brain (called the grey matter) are ‘pruned’ away. At the same time, other connections are strengthened. This is the brain’s way of becoming more efficient, based on the ‘use it or lose it’ principle.
This pruning process begins in the back of the brain. The front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is remodelled last. The prefrontal cortex is the decision-making part of the brain, responsible for your ability to plan and think about the consequences of actions, solve problems and control impulses. Changes in this part of the brain continue into early adulthood.
Because the prefrontal cortex is still developing, teenagers might rely on a part of the brain called the amygdala to make decisions and solve problems more than adults do. The amygdala is associated with emotions, impulses, aggression and instinctive behaviour.