 When we get together we are going to be looking at the adolescent brain and I really thank you for the prompt on this because I really got the chance to update the information about this topic which is really ever-changing. So based on new information about the brain we have a better understanding of what's really going on at different developmental stages and some of the bigger questions that have jumped out to us based on research by some of really the best people out there. For example, Jay Geed is one of the few people that have actually done longitudinal studies that have followed pre-adolescent brains for a longer period of time and so understanding this concept that adolescence you know literally the etymology of the word really means the process of becoming ripe. Very cool idea right? So how do we define the onset of puberty? How do we understand that the concept of being a teen is not the same as being an adolescent? So understanding those differences here and then also suggesting do we consider adolescence really a developmental period rather than just a time an age of an individual if we can sort of change our viewpoint there and something we also want to share is that there are difficulties there's a lot of problems with studying the adolescent brain just as there are studying the early childhood brain and the aging brain mainly they have to do with the need for more multidisciplinary perspectives but the truth of the matter is that most people are still in their sort of silos. So the geneticists have one view of the adolescent brain. Neuroimaging studies tell you something else. Neurobiological studies tell you something else. People who look at animals and adolescents and animals like in rats you know tell you something else or looking at brain structures or brain volume at one level or the psychological angle of looking at social relationships or emotion and cognition links to a more and more sophisticated understanding for example graph theory which is a mathematical theory showing how neural networks in the brain are actually linked through neural constructivism and the connectome project leading to this different vision you know of network science or an appreciation of transdisciplinary studies and the call that really exists right now of asking you know if we're going to be studying the adolescent brain in a serious way we really better do this in a much more transdisciplinary way than has existed in the past because little quips of knowledge from each of these subgroups often lead to neuromiths about the brain and so we have to be very very careful to have a more broader more rounded out vision of the brain. So we'll look at what changes actually really do occur right now the types of research for example the ABCD project the adolescent brain cognitive development longitudinal study that's going to be tracking 10,000 years for the next 10 years to see what kind of influence negative behavior sometimes associated with adolescence for example marijuana tobacco and other drug use what influence that actually has in the developing brain and we'll look at the kinds of debates that are occurring based on that kind of research. Additionally instead of looking this kind of black and white you know adolescence is a tumultuous time or adolescence is you know a fabulous time trying to look at this middle way of understanding what can occur in adolescence and what are the risk factors and protective factors in individuals' lives that sort of tip them from taking these risk moments and turning them into resilient building opportunities how does that occur and how can we as teachers play a role in that change and throughout the presentation we're really going to be talking about this middle way it's not that for example technology in the adolescent brain is good or bad or whatever we're going to talk about you know something the effects of technology on the brain and in the positive or negative influences that video games could might have or whatever right but we're also going to look at the idea of using technology to actually diagnose certain types of problems what's happening in lab schools around the world in which you're able to measure a person's heart rate or blood pressure or to be able to take a saliva sample and understand the level of stress hormones that are triggered by certain teacher interactions right so we're going to look at how we can leverage technology maybe look at this in a more positive way or even how you can treat certain types of ailments using virtual reality experiences for example and so we'll look at the way that adolescents interact with technology but also how technology can be useful or beneficial towards treating common ills during adolescence and sort of finding this you know very middle way here that technology isn't to blame for these things it's just how we put it to use so have we created you know certain policies within our school structures that leverage technology in the best ways is it correct that in some school systems around the world they make kids turn over their cell phones when they walk in the school door and they don't get them back until school ends is that a good thing to do or are there other ways to approach responsible technology use within your classrooms we'll look into that as well there are also a lot of things in the news you know well it's about boys it's about girls well one thing that we really want to emphasize is that there are more similarities than differences you know if you take all the men in the world and all the women in the world there's basically more differences you know among all of the men and among all of the women then there are between the men and the women and we'll really pull that apart when we get together as well we'll also look at some of these things like drug use and the influence of alcohol tobacco on the brain or how does that actually occur but we're going to match that with some other information that looks at the potential or how it is that your brain actually adapts to its environment during this time and we'll also look at this as pretty much an obligation that we have now that we have this opportunity to study the adolescent brain in a bit more depth and in a more transdisciplinary way why is this so important and there's a big push that's coming out of center for disease control understanding that one in five adolescents has a mental illness that'll persist into adulthood that mental health care costs are so high but that understanding that most mental illnesses emerge before adulthood is really important because early intervention could have some impact on those figures and so understanding the context of society and so we'll look at all these opportunities but also within the construct of what we see in the popular press and certain myths about the teenage brain or how brain maturation really works or how your frontal lobes just aren't connected or whatever or the idea that oh no everything has to do with a good family home or a bad family home or how we actually measure changes in the teenage brain or that basically after adolescence it's all downhill you can't really learn anything new and we'll look at all of these different types of myths to make sure that we're really clear about what we do know and what we don't know yet about the adolescent brain how it involves different types of interactions with different actors in society what the role of the home and parents is and also what teachers can do about the adolescence that we work with what is behind this risk taking and how is that actually connected to you know the sort of thrill seeker mentality we think that's apparent with teenagers but is it right and could it be that that maybe the the ideas we have about how adolescents are thrill seekers maybe doesn't have so much to do with sort of the fear processing elements that we've thought of very much along the way maybe it has much more to do with decision-making mechanisms in the brain so could it be that we can understand risky behavior in a very different way if we look at different theories of what's going on in the adolescent brain right now so rather than adolescents seek out thrills because they love the sense of fear could it be that the adolescents are actually refining other neuro mechanisms that are close in terms of pathways but they're actually more related to decision-making processes so we'll explore those concepts as well so and we'll look at the different ways that neuroscientists are approaching a better understanding of the adolescent brain and to sort of just get ourselves up to speed of what the most recent research is saying we'll also take the time to look at adolescents and also social learning we know that there's a lot of psychological theories related to social decision making how people make decisions based on what their peers say and what role that really plays especially as it relates to social cognition and social contagion we'll also consider things like social anxiety disorder and this once believed in theory that all of this is very much related to fear but could it also be that social stresses are more related to reward systems in the brain so we'll explore some of those different types of theories that are out there about what this means now that we know a little bit about what areas of the brain are activated can that give more credence to some psychological theories than others and that's what we'll be exploring when we get together so some of the big ideas that we help get shared are that the brain you know adapts to what it does most so some of the things that are done that become habituated behavior that are rehearsed repeatedly during early childhood pre-adolescence and adolescents have a long-term effect on the brain we'll also look at the reason there's so much more new money being poured into the adolescent brain studies right now it has a lot to do with the fact that three-quarters of psychiatric illnesses really have onset before the age of 24s and that are not visible before the age of 10 so basically it's this adolescent stage that is being seen as key in really tipping does this person actually fall into these states of psychiatric illness or not what tips them we hope that a take home message is that these transdisciplinary visions you know looking not only at the neurobiology of things or the genetic makeup or not only looking at the hormonal or chemical structures that are occurring in the brain or not only looking at circuits or what parts of the brain are connected or not connected or refined during adolescence we have this more global vision that includes visions from psychology psychiatry also from education that contribute to our better understanding of the brain if we look at all of those pieces together we'll have a more clear understanding of the adolescent brain as it stands right now so i really encourage you to take the time to sort of think about some of these bigger ideas come with a lot of questions i'd love to talk to you more about this information and really from the standpoint of what we can do within the school context that would influence and best serve the adolescence that we work with thanks a lot