A new paper was published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) on Tuesday that is in intriguing. Prefrontal and amygdala volumes are related to adolescents’ affective behaviors during parent-adolescent interactions. So what does this mean? It is published online right now, and so I can’t read the whole manuscript yet. But it seems that the authors demonstrated that one of the regions of the brain that is implicated in aggression (the amygdala) is larger in adolescents who engage in aggressive behavior as observed in parent-child interactions. They also find that one portion of the frontal lobe, which is known to be involved in executive function, behavioral inhibition, and regulation of emotion, has a decreased leftward asymmetry in males with “dysphoric” behavior (i.e., behaving like teenagers). It isn’t clear from the study whether the sex differences also hold up for the amygdala results.
It would be unprofessional to question an article that I haven’t yet read, so I am looking forward to reading the article when it is published electronically so I can get answers to the following questions:
- Why is asymmetry in that region of the frontal lobe important?
- What is the evidence of the role of amygdala volume and agressive behavior in non-adolescents?
- How big was the association between volume and behavior?
- What is the developmental trajectory of the volume and asymmetry in these brain structures?
But the bottom line, is that there is something compelling about any study that can empirically demonstrate something that anyone who is (1) a parent, (2) a neuroscientist, or (3) a sentient human being knows: That the brains of teenagers aren’t like those of adults.