Scientists to start Research on what goes on in a teenage brain.

Scientists at Cambridge University have begun a £5.4million study to understand the workings of the teenage brain.

They will scan the brains of 300 participants, currently aged 14 to 24, over several years to see how they change as they grow older.

Teenagers are typically impulsive, argumentative and sullen – as personified by Harry Enfield’s teenager Kevin, whose catchphrase is ‘it’s so unfair’.

Ed Bullmore, a professor of psychiatry at Cambridge University, believes that the wiring of the brain gradually changes as teenagers approach adulthood, which eventually allows them to control their emotions and act less impulsively.

‘MRI scans will give us very good pictures of how the anatomy of the brain changes over the course of development,’ he said. ‘We are particularly interested in how the tissue at the centre of the brain, known as white matter, might change over the course of development.’

Professor Bullmore believes that changes to the white matter, the communication cables between brain cells, increase the mind’s ability to think ahead. He explained that changes to the brain’s wiring will be related to emotional, behavioural and cognitive changes.

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