Journey Through the Mind of a Teenager

I was chuckling to myself after hearing of another Corporate HR Seminar telling us how to live. This one was a workshop on understanding the mind of a teenager; so now corporations that stumble over the simplest problems of right and wrong (don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal) are going to give guidance on human development and the complexities of the human brain as it goes through a rapid and particularly tumultuous transition? That’s like letting my Uncle Al help me with my math homework using his patented “shot glass math” method, which, in all fairness, might have worked but for the tequila.

But as a former Social Worker who ran a shelter for Teens and as the proud and graying parent of two – count ‘em – two teenagers, I am qualified to create a road map for navigating the exciting but dangerous byways of the Teenage Brain. In the name of honesty, here’s what you see below: an article I lifted from the internet describing the parts of the brain. There were better written articles out there, but I really didn’t understand them, so I settled for this one and then wove in my commentary, only this time I did not color code my editorial additions because I wanted to preserve the tone and verisimilitude of a scholarly article whilst injecting the usual drivel, thus achieving an understated irony. Had I written this at 6 AM (meaning there is high likelihood but no guarantee of sobriety), it would have come out more like: I wanted it to sound like a serious article with some ridiculous passages. You can have fun guessing what I wrote.

The Hindbrain

This is the most primitive part of our brain and controls the teenager’s most primal instincts, such as survival, dominance, mating, as well as the involuntary functions like respiration, arguing, heartbeat, and wet dreaming.

· The Spinal Cord

The information superhighway of the brain; this is how you must enter the brain, but be warned: the spinal cord of a teen is the Autobahn of the nervous system – if you don’t move at the minimum speed limit, you could get swept up in a tidal wave of carnal thoughts and crash into parts of the teenage brain where no grown ups should ever get stranded.

· The Medulla Oblongata

Helps control the body's autonomic functions (things you don't need to think about to perform) like respiration, digestion and heart rate and, if I have a vote, arguing. Countless interactions with my teenagers have me convinced that they are never conscious of the fact they are arguing. If I try to convince them otherwise, I am confronted by piercing looks of incredulity. The Medula Oblongata (didn’t The Police have a hit single by that name?) also acts as a relay station for nerve signals going to/from the brain. But be warned that the guy who runs this part of the brain, just like your teen, likes his sleep. And conveniently for the teenagers, he’s always asleep when I ask them to wash the dishes, or do their homework, so that signal is never relayed.

· The Pons

Controls the level of arousal or consciousness and sleep. To move safely through this chamber, it is critical that you traverse it while the teen is sleeping; I once got caught there during arousal and I was like a mouse stuck inside a pinball machine. On the plus side, there are Red Bull vendors and Starbucks at every turn.

· The Cerebellum

Mostly deals with movement. It regulates and coordinates movement, posture and balance. During those awkward adolescent growth spurts, this place is filled with a ton of overwhelmed engineers attempting to run growth calculations on the fly with minimal success. Run the wrong equations and the teen can stub a toe or embarrass himself at a school dance.

The Limbic System

The Limbic System sometimes called the "emotional brain" or "Old Mammalian Brain" is the next brain to have evolved in the more primitive mammals about 150 million years ago. This is where our emotions reside, where memory begins and where these two functions combine together to mark behaviors with positive or negative feelings - in other words, a very dangerous place. It's where mostly unconscious value judgments are made. Information going through the Limbic System is filed under "agreeable or disagreeable". Makes sense. My mostly unconscious teens always think I’m being disagreeable, even when I’m saying “Good Morning.” In the name of fun, I respond by crooning a rather disagreeable version of “You Are My Sunshine,” which means I just sing in my regular voice. It also plays a role in salience (what grabs your attention), spontaneity and creativity. Located in the Limbic System are:

· The Amygdala

Its name is Latin for almond, which relates to its shape (Mom always called me almond brain; she must have been referring to the Amygdala). It helps in storing and classifying emotionally charged memories. Unfortunately, during the teenage years, Amygdala day laborers often go on strike to protest the overwhelming workload, as there is not enough time in the day to deal with the flood of emotionally charged memories that teens produce (on average, one every 3 minutes for boys and one every 13 seconds for girls, a ratio that is reversed for sexual thoughts). It plays a large role in producing our emotions, especially fear. It's been found to trigger responses to strong emotion, such as sweaty palms, freezing, increased heart-beat/respiration and stress hormone release. This is bad news for teens, who produce hormones like a goose produces shite, and who are prone to developing teenage crushes, leaving them to walk around panting and shaking in a feverish state, not the best way to attract a girlfriend or boyfriend.

· The Hippocampus

This guy is all about memory and a little about learning. Its primary role is in memory formation, classifying information, long-term memory. Like the RAM in your computer, it processes and stores new and temporary memory for long term storage. It's also involved in interpreting incoming nerve signals and spatial relationships. This is the one part of the brain with nothing to do in the teenage years. It really doesn’t get busy until its subject gets married and is forced to remember things by its spouse; also, it works overtime during a divorce as it is asked to rummage for useful dirt in all the junk that’s been stuffed in the back of the memory closet for years.

The Hypothalamus

It should be called the Hyperthalamus because it does so much. It's linked closely with the pituitary gland to control many of the body's functions. It monitors and controls your circadian rhythms (your daily sleep/wake cycle), homeostasis (making sure your body is running smoothly), appetite, thirst, other bodily urges and also plays a role in emotions, autonomic functions and motor functions. The original multi-tasker. Imagine trying to balance the appetite and raging bodily functions of a teen in only 12 waking hours. Get that man some Red Bull and Vodka.

· The Thalamus

The Thalamus is THE relay station in the brain. Most of the sensory signals, auditory (sound), visual, somatosensory (from your skin and internal organs), go through this organ on their way to other parts of the brain for processing. It also plays a function in motor control. It’s like Grand Central station at quittin’ time on a Friday.

The Neocortex

The last and most advanced brain to evolve to date is called the Neocortex, neomammalian or rational brain. We share this part of our brain with other higher level mammals like the primates and dolphins, although in humans the neocortex is the largest. It takes up 2/3's of the human brain. This is where we find the brain power to develop language, abstract thought, consciousness and imagination. Let there be no doubt, this is what grants us our status on the food chain and allows us to be human. All I can say is it’s a good thing this part makes up 2/3’s of a teenager’s brain, since teens produce so few rational thoughts.

The Neocortex is divided into two hemispheres, right and left. The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and vice versa. Also the hemispheres are divided in terms of what kind of thought they process or produce. The right being more concerned with the artistic, spatial and musical, while the left is more concerned with the colder, linear, rational and verbal aspects. Located in the Neocortex are:

· The Frontal Lobe

This is the most recent evolutionary addition to the brain. If the brain had a White House it would be here. It is the true center for command and control in your body. The Frontal lobe is responsible for functions such as reasoning, problem solving, judgment, impulse control. This coupled with the fact that it's the last to develop when we are young adults, probably answers a lot of questions for many parents out there. It also manages our higher emotions such as empathy and altruism. This lobe is also involved in motor control and memory. Way back in the far left corner of every teen’s frontal lobe there is a small black electronic device with a handwritten note attached and four bored looking guys sitting around playing cards. After some inquiry, I learned the identity of the card players. Each was a department head for the Reasoning, Problem Solving, Judgment, and Impulse Control shops, respectively. They explained that the black box was a Brain Wave Jamming Device that made it impossible for them to send the necessary messages to the teen’s body. When I asked about the note, they chuckled wryly and told me to have a look. It read: “Let it never be said that the divine Creator doesn’t have a sense of humor. I have equipped each human brain with a similar box, which is hidden until the frontal lobe of the brain develops at the onset of adolescence, at which time it begins to scramble any brain messages you attempt to send, rendering the teenager a complete ass until such time as the device’s battery dies. Please note that I started installing Energizer batteries recently, so the life of the devices has been extended by 10 to 20 %. This is the real reason that adolescence extends well into the twenties for most young people today. Don’t believe all that hooey about societal influence. I find bungling adolescent behavior funny. Sue me. Oh, that’s right, you can’t; I have divine immunity. Oh well. Yours having a good laugh, God.”

The Parietal Lobe

The Parietal Lobe is involved in processing pain and touch sensation. It's where the Somatosensory (from your skin and internal organs – I swear I slurred/invented this word the last time I went binge drinking) Cortex resides. It's also associated with cognition (including calculating location and speed of objects), movement, orientation, recognition and speech. I couldn’t wait to give the Parietal Lobe Manager a piece of my mind and curse him out for abandoning me in high school in Algebra when I was stumped by all those stupid word problems with the two trains traveling at different speeds; before I could find a solution my trains invariably crashed and burned, along with my grades.

· The Temporal Lobe

The Temporal Lobe is involved in auditory (sound) sensation and is where the Primary Auditory Cortex and Wernicke's Area (language recognition) are located. This lobe is also involved in emotion, memory and speech. It is an utter failure during the adolescent years, since most teens are emotionally stunted, can’t remember to do the simplest things like bathing, handing in their homework, or feeding the animals. Plus, the only volume setting a teen understands is “about to go deaf” or, as so eloquently explained by Nigel Tufnel, legendary guitarist for Spinal Tap, the number 11, because, unlike most Marshall guitar amps which only go up to 10, Nigel’s goes to 11. And who is Wernicke and how come he has a part of the brain named after him? I want them to name a part after me. I’m thinking the Amygdala, because my brain is the size of an almond, my palms are sweaty, and I always had trouble attracting a girlfriend (I blame the sweaty palms).

· The Occipital Lobe

The Occipital Lobe controls visual sensation and processing. The Visual Cortex is resides here. Teen Gamers often have overdeveloped Occipital Lobes.

· Broca's Area

This part of the cortex controls speech, language recognition and facial nerves. Poor Broca has an especially tough time with teenage girls and the constant jabbering and face pulling and eye rolling and death glaring. Who’d he piss off to get this job?

· The Corpus Callosum

This is the neural bridge that connects the two hemispheres to each other, located centrally in brain. No doubt each gender would argue that the other rarely traverses the bridge into the left hemisphere, where reason and rationality prevail. Perhaps the bridge is out, the result of the constant wear and tear of the teenage years. Or maybe Broca finally went off the reservation and blew it up, transforming the Corpus Callosum into the Corpse Callosum, leaving the subject, as my teachers liked to label me, brain dead!

Believe The Captain when he says: If teenagers can think, then pigs can fly.

Yours thinking with my Hind Brain,

The Captain