Adolescent Brain Development

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about adolescent brain development, focusing in particular on: (i) the three ‘layers’ of the brain, comprised of the reptilian and mammalian parts, as well as the neocortex in higher primates and humans; (ii) the fact that the mammalian part of the brain develops earlier than the neocortex, resulting in feeling emotions which cannot be properly responded to; (iii) the result of this imbalance in the developmental timeline being that the adolescent brain is more prone to risk taking behaviour; (iv) Steinberg’s research into training adolescents to avoid potentially harmful risk taking by teaching them to evaluate their emotions more rationally; (v) research using gambling tasks to demonstrate differences between adult and adolescent behaviours.

About the lecturer

Dr Ashok Jansari is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Dr Jansari’s research interests include memory disorders, prosopagnosia, executive functions, and synaesthesia. Dr Jansari is most famous for his research into prosopagnosia, having made numerous TV appearances, including on BBC1’s The One Show, as well as hosting his own ‘Neuro Talk’ YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/DrAshokJansariNeuroTalk/featured

Some of Dr Jansari's recent publications include 'Acquired synaesthesia following 2C-B use' (2019), 'Using virtual reality to investigate multitasking ability in individuals with frontal lobe lesions' (2019), and 'Identification from CCTV: Assessing police super-recogniser ability to spot faces in a crown and susceptibility to change blindness' (2018).