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All the experiences in your life – from single conversations to your broader culture – shape the microscopic details of your brain. Neurally speaking, who you are depends on where you’ve been. Your brain is a relentless shape-shifter, constantly rewriting its own circuitry – and because your experiences are unique, so are the vast, detailed patterns in your neural networks. Because they continue to change your whole life, your identity is a moving target; it never reaches an endpoint.
You become who you are not because of what grows in your brain, but because of what is removed.
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Although they had their basic needs met (they were fed, washed and clothed), the infants were deprived of emotional care, support, and any kind of stimulation. As a result, they developed “indiscriminate friendliness”. Nelson explains that he’d walk into a room and be surrounded by little kids he’d never seen before – and they’d want to jump into his arms and sit on his lap or hold his hand or walk off with him. Although this sort of indiscriminate behavior seems sweet at first glance, it’s a coping strategy of neglected children, and it goes hand-in-hand with long-term attachment issues. It
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Without an environment with emotional care and cognitive stimulation, the human brain cannot develop normally.
Beyond social awkwardness and emotional hypersensitivity, the teen brain is set up to take risks. Whether it’s driving fast or sexting naked photos, risky behaviors are more tempting to the teen brain than to the adult brain.
A mature pleasure-seeking system coupled with an immature orbitofrontal cortex means that teens are not only emotionally hypersensitive, but also less able to control their emotions than adults.
For frustrated parents the world over, there’s an important message: who we are as a teenager is not simply the result of a choice or an attitude; it is the product of a period of intense and inevitable neural change.
On the flip side, they found that negative psychological factors like loneliness, anxiety, depression, and proneness to psychological distress were related to more rapid cognitive decline. Positive traits like conscientiousness, purpose in life, and keeping busy were protective.
