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Essay on Article Review: The Teen Brain

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The article under review in this paper is 'Neurodevelopment: How does the teen brain work?' by Kendall Powell (2006). this article appears to be credible based on the following: although the author is a freelance science writer, his work lead one to believe he knows what he is talking about. In addition, he provides several supportive resources to back up his topics. He has several other articles and writings available on the internet. However, while no educational background is available, he writing experience extends to PLoS, HHMI Bulletins, and the Los Angeles Times to name a few. Powell is associated with Nature Publishing Group (NPG), who publishes scholarly articles for academic and daily life audiences. This particular article was …show more content…

Whereas, all bodily functions depends on the neurotransmissions of the nerve cells and synapse connections, when these cells and connections die, removal is the only option to assure the functions such as memory and cognition continue. The frontal cortex is responsible for cognitive functions such as planning, action execution, and impulse control. By the time a child reaches the age of puberty his or her brain resembles an adult brain in context of weight, size, areas of the brain specific to certain functions, and folding. However, the development of the brain is incomplete (Powell, 2006).
Although, the brain of a teenager resembles and even acts like an adult brain, the one difference is that a teenage brain lacks cognitive maturity (Powell, 2006). During the teenage years, as nerve cells fight to survive, synapse connections become rewired and upgraded to other parts of the brain creating more complexity in the teenage brain. Studies show that teenagers tend to overuse the frontal cortex because they have trouble stopping impulsive reaction. Therefore, additional studies involving probing the teenage brain reveals at these times of frontal cortex overuse, a considerable amount of reconstruction is taking place. Furthermore, these reconstructions take place before other factors such as hormones, peer pressure, or unexplained rebellion come into play, affecting the teenager's ability to make decisions or control

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