The ups and downs of a teenage brain

By Stephan Ornes

November 9, 2011 

One thing that we know for sure about teens is that they change inside out. That would include the brains and mental abilities.  That is according to a team of scientists from London. They recently reported back that “a person’s IQ may rise or fall and regions of the brain may change during the teenage years.” An IQ, measures a person’s ability to think. Many researches say that the IQ never changes for an individual. If that was true then our IQ at age 10 would be the same as ours at age 40.  A scientists who teaches in London, designed an experiment to try and solve the mystery of the teenage brains. In 2004, she and her team tested the IQs of about 33 teens who were aged from 12 to 16. While the experiment they were taking pictures of the teen brain. A few years later in 2007 and 2008 they all returned to the lab. Like the first time the scientists looked at their brains and measured their IQ's. After the experiment Price looked and compared the results. She was shocked! Half of the IQ's changed dramatically over the years. Price was making predictions and predicted that maybe teens were concentrating more or less on the second test compared with the first, which is why they scored differently. But when she took a look at the brain scans more surprises came up! The brains of teens who’s IQ's went up on verbal IQ tests “had more gray matter than before in an area called the left motor cortex, which is involved in speaking. She found other connections between increased IQ scores and gray matter, which is tissue containing brain cells.” Knowing that the students IQ's change over the years might be very helpful for teachers whose students are changing very fast. Scientists still don’t exactly know why the teens IQ's are changing so fast but that discovery might be made in the future, possibly by one of you! :P

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2011/11/the-ups-and-downs-of-a-teenage-brain/