Does a teenager's brain physically change?

The brain structure is only 80% complete at puberty, so teenagers' brains change dramatically. Learn more about how teen brains change with Frances Jensen, MD, chair of the neurology department at University of Pennsylvania.

Transcript

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We get lean and mean as adults. Unnecessary synapses actually are pruned off.

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So that whole process is actually happening. Happens in childhood. It's happening in the teenage years.

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Absolutely changing dynamically. This structure is about 80% complete around puberty,

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and you've got much more myelination, as I mentioned, connectivity, to go. And you also have a pruning process of your synapses.

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We get lean and mean as adults. Unnecessary synapses actually are pruned off.

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So that whole process is actually happening, happens in childhood. It's happening in the teenage years. And teleologically, it's probably

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because the brain at that point is customizing itself for what it believes is going to be

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the environment in which it would live for the rest of the life. Today, we move all over the place,

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from different cultures that some of the skills that you, you know, might hard wire in your teen years may not be the most useful later if you've

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moved into a completely different culture. [MUSIC PLAYING]