8 Scientific Reasons Why Teenagers Are Completely Insane

8. A Brief History Of Your Brain

Once upon a time, when you were a toddler, your brain was bristling with synapses. This was to help you figure out the strange, loud and confusing world from first principles and soak everything up like a sponge. This works really well for children, who have the luxury of a caregiver to protect them while they're busy puzzling out the concept of rusks. However, when you get a bit older, this crowded, curious brain does not serve you well when you're trying to drive a car or run away from a predator. Adulthood requires a more focussed mind and so a certain amount of pruning has to go on. This pruning tends to happen, you guessed it, during our teenage years. The grey matter in your brain is cut down at a rate of .7% per year in a sort of "use it or lose it" fashion in which the lesser-used neural pathways are cut or rerouted. On top of all this, there is also a process called myelination going on at the same time. Myelin is basically a substance that coats the neurons in your brain and acts like a superconducting oil, the result is that neural firing becomes three thousand times quicker with myelination. This process is ongoing throughout the teenage years and could be one of the reasons why girls mature faster than boys - they myelinate faster. The upshot of all this is that trying to do any kind of thinking as a teenager is like trying to cook a Christmas dinner whilst someone dismantles your kitchen. This, in a nutshell, is why teenagers are such maniacs.