Pruning the brain
the transformation from teen to adult
Substack 060825 cusp of 060925
Brains on my brain.
About 10 years ago, I gave a talk at a Silicon Valley public middle school during STEM week. When I looked at the lineup of fantastic speakers talking about everything from astrophysics to microbiology and from climate change to robotics. I remember looking at the schedule wishing I could go to every one of these talks. Little me certainly would have loved to immerse in contemporary scientific question from real scientists. Straining to remember what exposure I had gotten in my large public schools to cutting edge science, I remembered that the year before CA Proposition 13 stripped funding for education, our high school science class went on a field trip to the La Brea Tar Pits to reinforce our unit on the Mesozoic Era (the era of dinosaurs). But kids these days, how lucky are they! Bringing myself back to the here and now, I was thrilled to see the middle school kids here buzzing around the schedule like bees in a lavender bush.
Since I was a family medicine physician with an active pediatric and adolescent population in my practice, I was given the uninspired title and topic “The Teenage Brain”. That day, I navigated through the school’s outdoor halls wondering whether I should have a more robust power point. When I arrived in the classroom designed for 30 kids, over 150 were squished into all available seats plus the sides and back of the room. Looking at the number of them holding cell phones, I realized that these kids spent more time on screens than any generation before them and that my actual in-person talk was spot on.
I started my talk sharing a personal story that I thought the kids could identify with. When I was 17, my friend and I borrowed my parents’ car to go camping in the wilderness nearby our city during the Leonid meteor showers. We carefully packed pads and sleeping bags, a small camp stove and unimaginative camping food that could be prepared with just hot water, and not much else. We drove up the paved mountain road until we arrived at the backwoods ranger station. The ranger gave us a nod after we showed them our pass. After the ranger station, the washboard dirt roads was bumpy and slow. Ultimately, we were driving alongside a steep drop-off. As we rounded the last corner near the summit, a meadow dotted with California poppies, lupine, and tidy tips stretched out in front of us. Phew! We had planned to sleep under the stars hopefully spotting the plethora of meteors in the Leonid shower. We were not disappointed. With our sleeping bags tucked up under our chins, we were spellbound as shooting stars seemingly continuous. Ooooing and ahhhhing several times a minute. We just couldn’t shut our eyes for fear we would miss a big one. In fact, we fell asleep despite our best intentions.
The following morning, my eyelids felt like Velcro on my eyeballs. Sticky as if tiny hooks snagged on tiny eyelets and as dry as the desiccant packets tucked into plastic bags during shipping to keep moisture from entering. As I awoke more, I realized that my contact lenses were gone. I could not see a damn thing. I am so nearsighted that I must have looked like Edna Mode or Mr. Magoo looking among the grasses and sleeping bag. The lenses were nowhere to be found. My friend and I packed up to go home without them when suddenly she realized that I would be unable to drive due to nearsightedness. In a panic she relayed to me that she was unable to drive a manual transmission. We pondered our quandry for a bit. Our seemingly brilliant solution in our teenage brains was to cram us both in the driver seat. Then, I would do the feet and gear shift part, and she would steer. Brilliant. We started out trying not to look down the steep mountainside on the dirt road. We were so proud of ourselves that we did not stop at the ranger station for help. We didn’t need no stinking help.
So, we drove 45 miles of the 2-lane paved country road, and then the highway back to our hometown. We tumbled into my house excited to share our great achievement. My father was working from home so was the first to see us. We proudly recounted our clever success at driving home two-as-one. We were thrilled to share how we navigated home without a driver possessing both eyesight and skills driving a car with a manual transmission. To our chagrin, my father was furious, apoplectic even, that we had driven home so unsafely. “Damn it you could have been killed!” I was sent to my bedroom until he could keep his cool. Ultimately, the consequence was going to ‘dad car safety school.’ Ugh
I stopped story telling at that point to ask if anyone had done something that seemed clever, or fun, or inventive only to get in trouble for it with adults. Multiple kids relayed experiences of parental interference or unfairness from their perspective.
Only then did I explain the difference between teenage brains and the adult brains developing during the years from adolescence well into our mid-twenties. Specifically, during our teen years, the prefrontal cortex is beginning to develop. As the teenage brain matures, increased executive function transforms us from the impulsivity, reactivity, and susceptibility to peer pressure of youth to adult brains with more developed executive function. Through pruning of neuronal pathways, we begin to be better able to take consequences into consideration as we grow in to a mature brain.
In groups of three (so many groups, so much talking!), I had them describe what my friend and I were experiencing, and then what my dad must have been thinking. The chatter was excited. The kids were animated as they shared both their ideas about this but also examples that they might have experienced where adults and teens just were not on the same page for risk. After we regrouped, we talked about the importance of peers, but also executive function. About the importance of spontaneity, but also deliberation and kindness. About the necessity of risk-taking, but awareness of not taking irreversible risks. My overstuffed classroom was abuzz.
A few days later, the student rankings for the STEM sessions taught by community members in the sciences came back. “The Teenage Brain” got 5-stars, but I think what they were voting on was their fascination with their own growth and development. The audacity of youth.
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Maybe I will continue this musing to reflect on the undermining and dissolution of US science infrastructure currently underway during this anti-science administration. We shall see if I can hack it. Like many, I am livid and terrified all at once. One of the epidemiologist bloggers I read likened what is happening now to a massive forest fire. The climax forest took decades to grow in a complex array of earth, water, and sunlight. It may take decades for the scorched landscape of our scientific institutions and brain trust to recover. More
Speaking of brains and Velcro, here is a textku from my archives:
My migraine brain
Even the Velcro
Rips through my brain like thunder
Splitting hemispheres
On another note, I have just finished my first nine days as a featured poet for the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project. It is not too late to check us out here:
https://www.tupelopress.org/30-30-project-page-current-month/
and DONATE to help keep poetry in our lives during these fraught times. If you are willing, consider donating in my name to egg me on ;-) in my becoming a writer.
Scroll down to find me:
https://www.tupelopress.org/30-30-project-volunteer-poets/
Question for anyone who might be reading this:
What do you recall about your ‘teenage brain’?
What challenges to you face in intergenerational situations?
How might the differences in executive function play a part?