Since the weather has improved, I’ve been enjoying walks along our gravel road after an almost two months hiatus. Now and then, I take a long hike towards town, passing the grocery story and the community college to get to the lovely walking trail in the park. But after hearing a recent NPR report about teen brain research, I wonder if I’m taking my life in my hands walking near the college, with young adults driving like maniacs, desperate to get to class on time.
In the radio story, neurologist Francis Jensen said, “scientists used to think human brain development was pretty complete by age ten.” She went on to say that a crucial part of the brian, the frontal lobes, aren’t fully connected. “It’s the part of the brain that says: ‘Is this a good idea? What is the consequence of this action? It’s not that they don’t have a frontal lobe. And they can use it. But they’re going to access it more slowly.”
According to the article, “the nerve cells that connect teenagers’ frontal lobes with the rest of their brains are sluggish. Teenagers don’t have as much of the fatty coating called myelin, or ‘white matter,’ that adults have in this area. Think of it as insulation on an electrical wire. Nerves need myelin for nerve signals to flow freely. Spotty or thin myelin leads to inefficient communication between one part of the brain and another.”
Myelin sheath…scars on the fatty coating are the defining mark of multiple sclerosis, the illness that robbed my dad of the ability to drive, walk, write, and see. And here’s a Harvard-level neurologist saying the myelin coating of teens isn’t developed. Yikes!
If this is true should our government be issuing drivers’ licenses to teenagers without fully formed brains or thick myelin coatings? And what was I doing walking on a road populated by teenagers racing to get to class while texting and eating breakfast, teens whose brains aren’t fully able to ask, “Is this a good idea? What is the consequence of this action?”
SInce my frontal lobes are formed and fatty coatings are something I have in abundance in many parts of my aging body, the onus is on me. Time to change my route or start my walk a half hour earlier so I’m long gone before the myelinless, lobeless drivers hit the road. So many people in the younger generation are dear to me even though their brains are still developing. I’d like to know them after their brains are in working order.
