Don't blame me, it is my brain!

Blame my Brain (the amazing teenage brain revealed)
Nicola Morgan 2005

Had the honour of meeting the author of this book in KL recently when this Scottish lady was conducting a workshop for writers of teenage stories. Her passion to write ignited at the age of 9 but had to wait for 27 years to publish her first book. She has written books in many genres, fiction and non -fiction, mainly for teenage readers.It is an amazement how those cuddly lovable cuties metamorphose into a volatile piercing thorns, something in the line of gremlins when exposed to water. In the case of tweens, it is adolescence! They may be the next most difficult thing to analyse after the female brain!
In this 200 odd page book, the author offers an reasonable explanation for this transformation. It can basically be blamed on nature, 3 main punching bags - genes, evolution, neuro-chemicals.
The author's target group seem to be teenagers and those in constant contact with teenagers with the hope of giving a reasonable explanation to their sometimes bizarre behaviour, probably to knock sense into the youngsters and to avoid adults from breathing down their necks.

Compared to other animals including primates, human spend a much more time in adolescence as they need to learn much more to seep into adulthood. Even though we tend to think that the brain stops growing quite early in life, it continue growing to much later and the dendrites and synapses undergo pruning and remodelling during this crucial age. The frontal cortex connexion to other areas of the brain is not fully developed explaining the sometimes rash decisions. The melatonin secretion which is related to sleep, is abundant at a time when a lot of work need to be done, hence the apparently sleepy-head teenagers. Dopamine which is sometimes associated with satiety sensation in certain part of the brain is increased with alcohol. When it consumed by the brain which is not fully developed, the chances of addiction and mishaps seem higher.

Risk taking brings up us in the evolution ladder and helps us improve our technology. The risk takers survives the cold winters!
Evolution is often called an easy animal which can explain many of our behaviors. A cat is a cat in spite of years of births and rebirths with limited skills of purring and scratching their fur. Man, on the other hand, have evolved from a wheel rolling population to one who sends nuclear powered vessels to other planets. A long adolescence is needed to prepare these children to adulthood to continue the good work done by their ancestors. Nature has shown that breeding with closely connected siblings or offspring is unhealthy, hence it tries to prevent breeding within families by creating intolerance between parents, children and amongst siblings for this very reason.
It goes on to educate on other teenage problems like eating disorders, self harm and depression.
What I find quite intriguing is that we blame our behaviours to everything but ourselves. Affluence, luxurious living, living in absence of poverty may pamper us till we all turn pompous, fat and spoilt to the core.
What we all, as mankind, need is an occasional calamity to shake us and put us all in other. We can all then see how fast we all mature, literally overnight! (this is not the author's recommendation,of course!)
Good advice from the author for the teenagers on the need to stay focused. As the brain connexions are being pruned and being complete, they need to constantly practice, prepare and stay out of trouble because their future starts here.