Another Mystery Solved by the Neuroscience Patrol

"Chemical reactions in the brain force teenagers' mood swings"

Oh, no...this is the worst possible news I could receive on a sunny Monday afternoon. What's it all about?

Hormones have long been blamed for mood swings in teenagers, even though the specific scientific causes have never been identified, making it hard to understand and treat adolescent angst. Now scientists have discovered that a hormone normally released in response to stress, a steroid called THP, actually reverses its effect at puberty, when it increases anxiety. In adults, the hormone THP, tetrahydropregnanalone, normally acts like a tranquilliser, acting at sites in the brain that "calm" brain activity. But the team found that in adolescent mice, THP acted on an unusual type of inhibitory receptor - where a receptor can be thought of as a kind of protein switch - and actually increased anxiety.

Now we know what we didn't know all along - the adolescent brain is not only different from the adult specimen but inchoate, imperfectly developed yet actively building highways, exit ramps, cloverleaves and rest stops in order to conquer the challenges of negotiating life's passages. In the meantime the teenage intellect is best described as the world's largest bumper car ride.

This adds to evidence that the adolescent brain is different from an adult one. Scientists used to think the brain stopped developing within a few years of birth, but MRI scans of adolescent brains published in the past decade have revealed that not only is there major reorganisation in the teenage brain, but it continues to develop until the early twenties. Research has already shown that one effect of this brain reshaping is a 20 per cent dip in the ability to judge emotions from faces. This may make teenagers less able to read social situations or empathise with others.

But why is this such bad news? Hasn't everyone my age completed the task of untangling the brain from a briar patch of angst and anger into an undulating field of neuron efficiency? Of course we have. It's just that based on these new revelations I feel the following people owe me an apology for incidents that I had no control over:

Officer C. U. Endaslammer (October 31, 1974)
Linda Goslewski (Fall Dance, 1973)
My younger sister (numerous crimes against humanity including teddy bear mutilation)
My cousin Mike (several "I dare you" episodes while driving '66 Mustang)
Officers L. S. MFT and Y. R. Usodomba (April 5-8th, 1976, I think)
Mr. Fife (Junior High Science Teacher)
Taffy (toy poodle owned by Mr. Fife - requiescat in pace)
Mrs. Brewer (9th Grade Math, last known address: Ward "C", Oklahoma State Hospital)

The list is much longer, but I must stop now to meet my kids for lunch.

You see, I owe them an apology.