Teenagers’ brains actually shut down when their parents are talking to them, says science

Neuroscientists have found that a teenager's brain shows decreased activity when listening to criticism from their mother.

Publishing their results in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience journal, leading researchers from Harvard, Berkeley and the University of Pittsburgh found that "youth shut down social processing [and] possibly do not think about their parents’ mental states".

The researchers took a group of 34 teens and pre-teens and studied their brain activity while they listened to a 30 second recording of their own mother "nagging" and then a second recording of their mother talking about something mundane like grocery shopping.

Three sets of neural processes were expected - activating emotional reactions, regulating those reactions and social cognitive processing.

When listening to criticism the teenagers' showed more activity in areas of the brain that deal with negative emotions but less activity in areas that handle emotional control and empathy.

They conclude by saying that:

Parents may benefit from understanding that when they criticize their adolescents, adolescents may experience strong negative emotional reaction, may have difficulty cognitively controlling this emotion and may also find it challenging to understand the parent’s perspective or mental state.

More: Scientists believe they have found a dementia 'weak spot' in the brain

HT Wired