Adolescent brains lack impulse control

WESTWOOD, Mass. — Hazing and bullying may be socially unacceptable behaviors, but it turns out there’s a physiological explanation for why these things sometimes happen during adolescence. It has to do with the immaturity and imbalance of the teen brain.

“Sometimes kids get sucked up into this kind of behavior without realizing what’s happening to them,” said Mitch Prinstein, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer at the American Psychological Association.

There’s a good reason for that -- and it’s called the ventral striatum, an area of the brain located near the ears.

“It’s one of the first parts of the brain to be developing during pubertal development, just before you see any physical body changes,” Prinstein said.

The ventral striatum is the brain’s reward center. It responds to such things as positive feedback from peers -- something teens crave.

“Remember when all we talked about was who was talking with whom and who sat at which table in the cafeteria, what to wear, what to say, what music to listen to,” Prinstein said. “That’s a sign of what’s happening in the brain. It’s showing you they’re so focused on the peer feedback and on their peer environment that it’s almost hard to think of anything else.”

Normally countering the ventral striatum is the prefrontal cortex -- or impulse control center. Prinstein said it’s one of the things that differentiates humans from other mammals. But it lags in development -- not reaching full potential until the mid-twenties.

Which doesn’t mean teens can’t make reasoned decisions. Often, they do, said Joao Guassi Moreira, Ph.D., an assistant psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“In some contexts, adolescents tend to be drawn more towards the risky choices but in other contexts, they’re drawn to safe choices,” he said. “Teens are not necessarily, as a group, predisposed or predetermined to do this. But sometimes a teen can find himself in a situation where they may kind of go along with it.”

That would include situations such as hazing, which is sometimes billed as a team-building activity -- but can do just the opposite.

“By creating a scapegoat or victim -- and that kind of gives a unifying sense,” said Soonjo Hwang, MD, a Child, and Adolescent Psychiatrist. “This is a very aggressive and coercive and negative way of getting together and victimizing your own team member.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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