New brain networks come ‘online’ during adolescence | Hacker News Reader

New brain networks come ‘online’ during adolescence

cam.ac.uk

114 pointshhs50 comments

I remember very strongly fancying a girl when I was in high school, and that's exactly how I described it at the time: it was as if a new subsystem had "come online" enabling me to feel more complex emotions. I compared it to Lt. Commander Data's emotion chip.

Interesting to see empirical neurological grounds for what I subjectively felt happening at the time.

was it something physical or emotional ? by that I mean did you never have deep feelings for girls in primary school or else ?

I dunno if this can be described as deep feelings but I clearly felt limerence ("falling in love") for girls of all the ages (from my age up to 20 years more old) since when I was 5. In fact I can't even say much has changed in me since then besides emotional (and, obviously, analytical too) intelligence growth and experience accumulation. I don't feel anything I couldn't feel when I was 5, I just understand the things more and know better what to do.

Speaking anecdotally, I long admired girls in primary school, but that's all it was, a "longing". Not to be coy but like a dog chasing a car I'm not sure what I would have done with one if I'd caught up to her. Probably act like I would towards any peer in my age group.

In adolescence I wrote a pretty amusing in my older years summary of the feelings I was experiencing during my first 'puppy love', what I'd describe today as intoxication or overwhelming and disproportionate delight.

I too had a longing and almost impossible to word admiration for girls beauty. Teenagehood only made it a sort of goal to chase and turn this into reality.. but the feelings weren't deeper. And tbh sex is another feeling on the side but it's not deeper than the previous sentiment.

I had this experience with having a kid (I'm male btw). I could feel what i can only describe it as a "gear change" in my head.

I very suddenly thought differently and re-evaluated everything in a different way.

It was a very odd experience.

I had a very similar when “we” were very first pregnant with our first. Almost 12 years later, I can still put myself right back at that exact moment and feel the lightning bolt.

Definately an odd rewiring of some kind immediately followinuv birth. I remember distinctly, carrying the baby downstairs and visualising me tripping, falling and killing her - or crossing the road and getting a strong visualisation of a car knocking us down. Luckily that seemed to fade after about 6 months.

I still cry a lot at movies now though, not something that I really did before. The kids think their father emptying out his spectacles is hilarious.

I agree with your sentiment.

Interesting article. Any new emotion or new emotional state creates a new space for new memories, and adolescence provides new emotions. Particular memories are easier to retrieve when in the emotional state they were formed. Maybe this explains why it can be hard to beat depression - pleasant memories are more difficult to retrieve and negative emotions easily surface.

First few times trying weed it felt like micro-tarzan swinging from a familiar branch of neurons to a whole new area of neurons.

Possibly why magic mushrooms and the like are being investigated as a legit therapy.

Depression has quite a few weird effects on memory, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overgeneral_Autobiographical_M...

I remember suddenly really liking listening to music when I became an adolescent. I wonder if my then new-found emotional appreciation for music was related.

I've heard the theory that the music you like/hear/is new to you at 14 is the music that you stick with for life.

I'm pretty sure I'm not listening to Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" for the rest of my life.

Your loss

I literally didn't listen to any music voluntarily at that age and I can't say I listen to anything that was available back then, now.

I'm also very curious at what makes young kids stick to "new" genre. And could you make an old song (one that doesn't age much if possible) stick to them as if it was the new hotness. Or maybe it's reinforced by society reacting to it as a new fad too.

Oh for sure, young kids get hooked into all sorts of stuff. Old stuff, foreign stuff. You don’t see it in the culture but interview a class of kids and there are always odd balls.

I know a lot of people are going to talk about their experience of fancying the other sex, etc.

I would like to say however that for a while now, I've repeatedly reminded my friends that 'gained sentience' when I first watched WALL-E. It made me feel emotions I never had before, I couldn't put words to what a novel experience it was. It's where I firmly demarcate my 'pre-sentient' and 'post-sentient' life.

This actually sparked a discussion among my group of friends, some identifying a moment when someone in their life died, other putting it down to a single panic attack. So yeah, something biologically 'coming online' seems legit.

Fascinating, would you mind me asking at what age you watch Wall-E?

My teenage daughter simply won't watch it again - too 'totes emoshe'.

When everyone's talking about how something improved, I feel like my brain degraded on the other hand, lol. I don't have a sharp memory or energy anymore. I get lost often in thoughts and can't think more clearly if something needs an immediate black-white response. I have gotten worse at communication.

I would trade being asexual for increased brain efficiency, too.

Your brain is rewiring in order to expand the domain of analysis. It is rewiring for dealing with higher levels of complexity.

Take a look at the bellow video for a short explanation of the evolution of the processes involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW4LTqRJDW8

How old are you? Have you ever sought a diagnosis for anything? You sound like me, 46yo with basically lifelong ADD that wasn't diagnosed until a couple of years ago.

Haven't found any silver bullets yet but your baseline can improve if you're in this club.

16.

I am diagnosed with that and few other issues but haven't received much help outside of that (family not educated enough and kind of eh). I feel very sacrificial because I have to resist the urge to focus on things ignoring clear health problems and self care. I think that's the biggest problem I have right now. I can't consistently stick to anything in the slightest.

I can manage it by sheer self control but that isn't fun and backfires with bipolar/anxiety because you need to have motivation in order to incentivise yourself.

It will get better. My teens were exactly the same. If your family isn't being supportive, trying seeing your GP directly (local doctor; I don't know what country you are in) and see if they will help you. Find some people who you can safely share your experience with. Remember that you are not alone, and that most of this is probably temporary. Modern opinion is that it's not until about about age 24 that your brain chemistry settles down.

Disclaimer: I also suffer from anxiety (and depression) and live on pills to stabilise me out, so I'm not talking out of my arse here :)

Yeah, I asked for a crowd source list for good mental health practitioners before since the place I live in doesn't have any even in the state. There is a lot of fraud and my bad experience combined with personal history has made me quite skeptical of doctors and hospitals. I am planning to give call to some of them, hopefully they might agree to see over face time as a temporary solution so I can again build trust in the falling apart healthcare situation here and due to other issues, it's hard to travel hundreds sometimes thousands kilometres to a different place to end up disappointed.

So we already know that brain forms new neuron connections all the time (or during sleep), so of course if there are new connections, there will technically be new networks? So the brain forms new networks each time we learn anything new... So how is this any different?

Louis CK has a bit about his earliest memory as he was 'coming online': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q10C5Zp1_Q

I never experienced this...

Teen used to be the old adult. Today's 'teens' used to be admirals and generals.

Maybe not admirals and generals, but perhaps captains or field officers. Eg Peter Noel Wylie-Buckwell.[0] From the Civil War era there's Arthur MacArthur Jr who made Captain by the age of 21. If you were to count brevetted ranks then he was Lieutenant Colonel at 19.[1]

[0] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/55967860/peter-noel_wyli...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_MacArthur_Jr.

I think we need to draw a line in the sand though and say fast, forced development doesn't work on humans as well as some imply it does. You cannot make the brain "grow faster"; that's not how humans work.

You can influence the shape in which a young brain grows much more easily and to a deeper extent than you can a mature brain. The neural systems one develops during adolescence will determine a lot of their psychological traits and the course of their life.

OK but what is your and OPs point?

For every "teen" Captain there were like thousands of privates, not to mention farmers, deck hands, apprentices, other workers.

And their offspring are the majority...

'teenager' is a modern construct, probably to limit the labor market.

> Arthur MacArthur Jr who made Captain by the age of 21

That's definitely young, but the average age of a Captain in the US military today is 27, and you can be one as early as 25.

The age of majority was traditionally 21 for men in the US and the UK. There were many rights and privileges that were restricted until then. You couldn't vote in most of the US until 21, for instance.

The only generals I can think of who were teenagers were nobility who inherited positions or people like Lafayette who managed to use his nobility to convince Washington to make him an honorary general when he was I believe 19.

Teenagers as a whole weren't respected members of adults society in the pre-modern time, even if they did usually have jobs.

Also Alexander was a teenager if i remember correctly.

I assume you're talking about Alexander Hamilton. He never rose past the rank of colonel. He did use connections to form a militia of college students that he led as captain. I believe he was either 18 or 20 at the time (there's a debate over when he was actually born). And he was later elevated to a colonel in the continental army, but he wasn't a teenager when that happened.

I rather suspect the reference was to Alexander the Great.

I thought that could be the case, but since I'd mentioned Washington and Lafayette I leaned towards Hamilton being the intended reference.

As for Alexander the Great he was probably a general as a teenager, but he falls squarely in the "nobility who inherited positions" camp. So much about Alexander is wrapped up in legends and comes from much later sources that we really have no idea how fantastic a "general" he was as a teenager.

I would think that children might be some of the best military leaders, since they'll have no preconceptions about how a war must be fought, but will take the most direct route to victory.

Much younger children had jobs too, working in the fields and such. That's why schools have the summer break - gotta put that child labor to good use.

'teenager' is a modern construct, so your comment is anachronistic.

The term teenager is a modern construct, but the idea of a time period where someone is no longer a child but not yet a full adult is ancient.

In some pre-modern cultures even though a 14 year-old could work, they couldn't inherit, hold office, fully own property, serve in the military, or even marry (without parental consent).

This applies differently to men and women and even in the same culture it can vary between social classes.

Some cultures had marriage in the 14s and earlier.

Sure did. Some still do.

fight, command, obey, learn to shave ? In a world where life was short and brutal, yes certainly a 20 year old is a major thing. People develop differently, and some may find that a long-adolescence is conducive to advanced learning not available "on a battlefield"

Given how much today's young adult flounders in much more cushy conditions, I doubt your claim that long-adolescence is conducive to anything positive.

We also used to die (mostly) in our 60s.

In the future, if the human race manages to extend their lifespan to ~200, then people probably won't be considered 'adults' until their 40s. It's all relative.

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