full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So MRI studies looking at the development of this region have shown that it really undergoes dramatic deenevmoplt during the period of adolescence. So if you look at gray matter volume, for example, gray matter volume across age from age four to 22 years increases during childhood, which is what you can see on this graph. It peaks in eraly aslccedenoe. The arrows indicate peak gray matter volume in prefrontal cortex. You can see that that peak happens a couple of years later in boys relative to girls, and that's probably because boys go through puberty a couple of years later than girls on average, and then during adolescence, there's a significant decline in gray matter volume in pftrnroeal cortex. Now that might sound bad, but actually this is a really irnoamtpt daetplmveneol process, because gray matter contains cell bodies and coonitencns between cells, the synapses, and this decline in gray matter volume during prefrontal cetorx is thought to correspond to spnyaitc pruning, the elimination of unwanted synapses. This is a really important psroces. It's partly dependent on the environment that the animal or the hamun is in, and the snspeyas that are being used are strengthened, and synapses that aren't being used in that particular environment are pruned away. You can think of it a bit like pninurg a rosebush. You pnure away the weaker branches so that the remaining, important branches, can grow stronger, and this process, which effectively fine-tunes brain tissue according to the species-specific environment, is happening in prefrontal cortex and in other brain rgeonis during the period of human adolescence.

Open Cloze


So MRI studies looking at the development of this region have shown that it really undergoes dramatic ___________ during the period of adolescence. So if you look at gray matter volume, for example, gray matter volume across age from age four to 22 years increases during childhood, which is what you can see on this graph. It peaks in _____ ___________. The arrows indicate peak gray matter volume in prefrontal cortex. You can see that that peak happens a couple of years later in boys relative to girls, and that's probably because boys go through puberty a couple of years later than girls on average, and then during adolescence, there's a significant decline in gray matter volume in __________ cortex. Now that might sound bad, but actually this is a really _________ _____________ process, because gray matter contains cell bodies and ___________ between cells, the synapses, and this decline in gray matter volume during prefrontal ______ is thought to correspond to ________ pruning, the elimination of unwanted synapses. This is a really important _______. It's partly dependent on the environment that the animal or the _____ is in, and the ________ that are being used are strengthened, and synapses that aren't being used in that particular environment are pruned away. You can think of it a bit like _______ a rosebush. You _____ away the weaker branches so that the remaining, important branches, can grow stronger, and this process, which effectively fine-tunes brain tissue according to the species-specific environment, is happening in prefrontal cortex and in other brain _______ during the period of human adolescence.

Solution


  1. early
  2. developmental
  3. human
  4. prune
  5. regions
  6. cortex
  7. prefrontal
  8. process
  9. important
  10. development
  11. synaptic
  12. synapses
  13. adolescence
  14. connections
  15. pruning

Original Text


So MRI studies looking at the development of this region have shown that it really undergoes dramatic development during the period of adolescence. So if you look at gray matter volume, for example, gray matter volume across age from age four to 22 years increases during childhood, which is what you can see on this graph. It peaks in early adolescence. The arrows indicate peak gray matter volume in prefrontal cortex. You can see that that peak happens a couple of years later in boys relative to girls, and that's probably because boys go through puberty a couple of years later than girls on average, and then during adolescence, there's a significant decline in gray matter volume in prefrontal cortex. Now that might sound bad, but actually this is a really important developmental process, because gray matter contains cell bodies and connections between cells, the synapses, and this decline in gray matter volume during prefrontal cortex is thought to correspond to synaptic pruning, the elimination of unwanted synapses. This is a really important process. It's partly dependent on the environment that the animal or the human is in, and the synapses that are being used are strengthened, and synapses that aren't being used in that particular environment are pruned away. You can think of it a bit like pruning a rosebush. You prune away the weaker branches so that the remaining, important branches, can grow stronger, and this process, which effectively fine-tunes brain tissue according to the species-specific environment, is happening in prefrontal cortex and in other brain regions during the period of human adolescence.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

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adolescent brain 2
soccer game 2
social brain 2
social emotional 2
medial prefrontal 2
intelligent adults 2
gray background 2
percentage errors 2
adult group 2
stop messing 2
limbic system 2
rewarding feeling 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
gray matter volume 4
living human brain 3

Important Words


  1. adolescence
  2. age
  3. animal
  4. arrows
  5. average
  6. bad
  7. bit
  8. bodies
  9. boys
  10. brain
  11. branches
  12. cell
  13. cells
  14. childhood
  15. connections
  16. correspond
  17. cortex
  18. couple
  19. decline
  20. dependent
  21. development
  22. developmental
  23. dramatic
  24. early
  25. effectively
  26. elimination
  27. environment
  28. girls
  29. graph
  30. gray
  31. grow
  32. happening
  33. human
  34. important
  35. increases
  36. matter
  37. mri
  38. partly
  39. peak
  40. peaks
  41. period
  42. prefrontal
  43. process
  44. prune
  45. pruned
  46. pruning
  47. puberty
  48. region
  49. regions
  50. relative
  51. remaining
  52. rosebush
  53. shown
  54. significant
  55. sound
  56. strengthened
  57. stronger
  58. studies
  59. synapses
  60. synaptic
  61. thought
  62. tissue
  63. undergoes
  64. unwanted
  65. volume
  66. weaker
  67. years