Recent studies of brain development in teenagers may finally give parents the scientific authority to say “No you’re not!” in answer to the common adolescent complaint, “But I’m old enough to make my own decisions!” That authority comes from brain imaging studies that reveal some surprising features of the adolescent brain. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd and colleagues [...]
Everyone knows the popular myths about the two brain hemispheres: The right brain is artistic, musical, spatial, intuitive, and holistic; the left brain is linear, rational, analytical, and linguistic. There is some truth in these labels. But, not surprisingly, they are mostly oversimplifications of tendencies, not fixed rules. A May 1998 issue of Science reported [...]
The Nature of Things There is something ethereal about human intelligence, something hard-to-pin-down. It’s hard even to define. Is intelligence the ability to reason? Does it have to do with memory? Is it aptitude with language? With mathematics? All of the above? Plenty of folks would go so far as to say that you just [...]
I’ve focused much of the past two years on the underlying neurobiology of adolescence. Corwin Press recently published the result of my efforts,The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy (2007). Adolescence has been integral to much of my life. Like all adults, I was once an adolescent. My wife and I have seven children who made [...]
A cheerful English voice, crisp and elegant, asked her the question again. “How many coins do you have there, Signora?” Signora Gaddi stared at the coins in her hand for a long time, and then looked up to smile apologetically at the doctor. It was a soft smile, warm, but tenuous and sad. The corners [...]
