10/1/14

Step 2: Teenagers are known as risk-takers. But why? Turns out it’s an evolutionary part of our brain development. Read about the science of teenage risk-taking in this article from Science News for Kids. As you read, take notes so that you can summarize the article on your blog. Hint: Pay attention to the subheads in the article!

After reading the article 

The teenage life is complex. Scientist are looking at teenage brains to see how and why they make the decisions they make. Teenagers choices' are all about exploring and pushing limits. Every species has an adolescence stage, this stage is necessary in order to reach adult hood. In order to examine the human brain, researchers use an MRI machine to test the theory between teenage and adult hood brains. Researchers use these young test subjects by putting them into an MRI machine and having them play various video games. While the teenagers play the researchers are tracking their brain activity. The researchers discovered that in teenagers there is a tug of war going on between the reward center, the ventral striatum, and the master planner, the prefrontal cortex. The reward center shows increased activity in everyone when there is a risky decision to be made or the offer of a reward. However, in teenagers this brain region is shouting even louder between the ages of 13-17. The prefrontal cortex's ability to boss the brain increases with age. Researchers believe that the teenage brain is constructed to experiment and take risks so that teens will grow away from their parents, create their own worlds and become more independent. There are two processes going on in the teen brain. One process involves the fibers connecting nerve cells. The other process is the strengthening of the synapses the docks between the nerve cells. Babies have an abundance of connections, but during the teenage years, many of these connections are pruned (eliminated) to make the brain process more efficient. This is why it's easier for young people to learn languages, but it also explains why sometimes it's hard for them to make logical decisions.

After reading the article "The Teenage Brain", I've realized the difference between a win, and a lost while taking a risk. One risk I took was earlier this month down in Soho. I was walking towards American Apparel for an open-call interview and since I was about 15min early, I decided to get something to drink to not only calm my nerves, but to quench my thirst. Haha. So I went into a friendly looking cafe and ordered some tea. The lady in the back of the counter told me "we only have black tea, would you like some lemon in it?" So I was like ".. sure" because I like tea, its soothing to my soul, but after drinking about half the cup my stomach started to hurt and I got nauseous. Wonderful! So this was the lost I experienced. I took a chance, and bought some black tea, I didn't want to spend $4 on the tea but I did, and the end result was me becoming nauseous, having to piss a river, and learning that I should not trust every cafe I go in to. 

After experiencing a lost, I must talk about a time I experienced a win. A win I experienced was last night, I left my boyfriends house and was in a rush to get home. The bus was taking forever and I was not at my usual bus stop. I usually go to the stop where I can either take the Bx1 or the Bx2 but I decided to take a risk, and went to the bus stop where I could only take the Bx1. After waiting for about 10min the bus finally came and it's about a 35min bus ride if I take it straight home. I was feeling lazy and the bus was going express, so I was stuck contemplating whether I should stay on or get off. I got off, I ran towards the train station and about 3 minutes later the train came. Not only did I make a smart move to get home quickly, save myself 20 minutes, but I also learned that getting off the bus isn't such a bad idea sometimes, and I need to stop being lazy.