Teenage brains are different. Although neuroscientists previously thought human brain development was virtually complete by age 10, teenagers' frontal lobes aren't fully connected. The brain cells connecting the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain don't have enough of the fatty insulation called myelin or "white matter". The frontal lobes are the part of the brain that deals with insight. Teenagers' brains aren't developed enough to think about the consequences of their actions. Because recent studies show the needed neural insulation isn't sufficient until the mid 20's, it's parents who have to deal with the consequences.
Middle-age brains have slower reaction time, slower learning time for new information and slower retrieval time for information already learned. The brain's ability to multi- task also lessens. The good news is middle-age brains experience continued improvement in complex reasoning, are better able to anticipate problems, as well as reason things out. This is attributed to myelin - the insulation around brain cells that increases the speed information travels from brain cell to brain cell. Myelin production doesn't peak until middle age. Best of all, new brain cells continue to grow, enabling us to continue to learn. ExCELLent!
A study published in Biological Psychiatry linked chronic insomnia in older people with shrinkage in areas of the brain regulating decision making and the ability to rest. The study compared white and gray matter volumes of 24 older insomniacs with 13 normal sleepers and found chronic insomniacs had the most gray matter shrinkage regardless of how long they'd suffered from insomnia. Unfortunately, the researchers don't know which comes first - lower gray matter density or insomnia. Future studies with people of various ages hopefully will determine that. Knowing which comes first would provide "first aid" for insomniacs.
Finally, a study at the University of California/Berkeley found out something that applies to the brains of all ages -naps may improve brain functioning. When something is first learned, it's stored in the hippocampus - the brain's short-term memory. For memories to survive they have to be stored in the cortex - the brain's long-term memory. Scientists hypothesize the information is transferred during sleep. To test this, 2 groups of young adults completed 2 learning sessions. However 1 group got a 90-minute nap between sessions. That group improved learning ability by 10%, while the non-nap group did 10% worse. Thus it seems "sleep on it" is good advice.
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