![]() It is a fascinating fact that I uncovered going through the literature around adolescence is our IQs are still malleable into the teen years. There's been a permanent change in their brains as a result of this that they may not ever be able to recover. People who are chronic marijuana users between 13 and 17, people who for a period of time, like a year plus, have shown to have decreased verbal IQ, and their functional MRIs look different when they're imaged during a task. An adult wouldn't have that same long-term effect. For instance, if they were to get high over a weekend, the effects may be still there on Thursday and Friday later that week. It locks on longer than in the adult brain. What's interesting is not only does the teen brain have more space for the cannabis to actually land, if you will, it actually stays there longer. It turns out that these targets actually block the process of learning and memory so that you have an impairment of being able to lay down new memories. So when you actually ingest or smoke or get cannabis into your bloodstream, it does get into the brain and it goes to these same targets. ![]() It has, for the most part, a more dampening sedative effect. We have kind of a natural substance that actually locks onto receptors on brain cells. We have natural cannabinoids, they're called, in the brain. īecause they have more plasticity, more substrate, a lot of these drugs of abuse are going to lock onto more targets in brains than in an adult, for instance. So for the same amount of alcohol, you can actually have brain damage - permanent brain damage - in an adolescent for the same blood alcohol level that may cause bad sedation in the adult, but not actual brain damage. On the effects of binge drinking and marijuana on the teenage brainīinge drinking can actually kill brain cells in the adolescent brain where it does not to the same extent in the adult brain. They have more deleterious effects and can be more toxic to the teen than the adult. The effects of substances are more permanent on the teen brain. They'll bounce back." Actually, it's quite the contrary. He can just go off and drink or do this or that. It also is a way to debunk the myth, by the way, that, "Oh, teens are resilient, they'll be fine. ![]() That is an important fact for an adolescent to know about themselves - that they can get addicted faster. Just like learning a fact is more efficient, sadly, addiction is more efficient in the adolescent brain. They build a reward circuit around that substance to a much stronger, harder, longer addiction. It's happening in the same way that learning stimulates and enhances a synapse. What happens in addiction is there's also repeated exposure, except it's to a substance and it's not in the part of the brain we use for learning - it's in the reward-seeking area of your brain. On why teenagers are more prone to addictionĪddiction is actually a form of learning. This research also explains why teenagers can be especially susceptible to addictions - including drugs, alcohol, smoking and digital devices. These are areas where we have insight, empathy, these executive functions such as impulse control, risk-taking behavior." "And what's in the front? Your prefrontal cortex and your frontal cortex. "The last place to be connected - to be fully myelinated - is the front of your brain," Jensen says. Brains aren't fully mature until people are in their early 20s, possibly late 20s and maybe even beyond, Jensen says. This insulation process starts in the back of the brain and heads toward the front. Cells have to build myelin, and they grow it around the outside of these tracks, and that takes years."
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