A review by jasmine_rd
Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

informative slow-paced

3.75

SPOILERS AHEAD 🤯

It was very in depth, I learnt a lot especially in the first half of the book (chapters 1,2,3,7,10). Later, I found it repititive and at times boring. This may be because I am mainly interested with the changes in adolescents' brains before, during and after experiencing mental illness.

1. Adolescence isn't an aberration
  • Sensation seeking, self regulation increases, embarrassment (Socrates said this too) 
  • Adolescent behaviour exists in other animals 
  • They understand long term risks, but care more about peers' opinions. 
  • Schizophrenia is a developmental disorder of late adolescence (18-25)

2. A sense of self 
  • Possessions represent ourselves (what's of importance, how we want to be percieved) 
  • Within 24 hrs babies can tell when someone else has touched its cheek, rather than itself = primitive sense of self. 
  • By 6 months babies will recognize a video of a same aged, identical clothes baby is not themselves. Babies have not looked at many mirrors or videos of themselves. 
  • By 18 months, babies understand that their bodies and faces belong to them (e.g rub paint of themselves in a mirror) 
  • By 2/3 years, children understand others are self aware and can differentiate ppl by speech. 
  • 11 - 14 years is where ppl become increasingly aware others can evaluate them = often overestimate this. 
  • The 'looking glass self' is how we think we are seen by others. Adolescents place higher value on this = plays a larger role in development of the self we become aware of.
  • 'imaginery audience' is when someone doesn't play a board game with family cos they think peers are criticizing them. Peers won't even find out. 
  • Sense of self also comes from 'introspection' which is having insight into our thoughts, emotions. E.g reasoning for why we feel a certain way or how confident you are in your answer (less in early adolescence)
  • Diff brain regions in 'intentional causality'

So, some diff aspects of the self are; the ability to distinguish self from others, the looking glass self, the ability to introspect and our cumulative store of memories and experiences. These each emerge from more than one neural system. These neural systems interact to produce behaviors, perceptions, dispositions and character traits that make up the whole self. 

3. Fitting in
  • Friends are most important during adolescence = impacts risk taking, decision making
  • All age groups alone take the same amount of risks. Adolescents with friends = 3 x as many risks as when alone. Young adults = 2 x. Adults = 0 x
  • 12 - 14 are influenced more by teens than adults. 15- 18 teen and adult influence is equal.
  • Socially isolation affects brain development in adolescent rats. Therefore, hypersensitivity to social exclusion may be an adaptation to push teenagers to conform to a group's values and so become socially included. 
  • We weigh up risks with a see saw and for adolescents for social pros can outweugh other social, health and legal factors. 

4. Inside the skull
  • At a young age many more neural pathways the needed are created, then pruned back. For example after 12 months if we are not subjected to certain sounds (eg from a different language) we can't distinguish them. Every age can distinguish 'ba' and 'da'. If two equally similar sounds from Hindi are played, only those younger than a year can distinguish the difference.

5. Inside the living brain 
  • Diff parts of brain used. It's suggested that adults use more stored self knowledge when thinking about themselves. Whereas, children rely more on self reflection.

6. The ever plastic brain
  • Grey matter (neurones, dendrites, where processing is done) decreases during adolescence to refine and mould the brain. White matter  (myelinated axons, channels of communication) increases 

7. Social mind, social brain
  • 'mentalizing' is attributing thoughts and feelings to other people. Automatic. Except for ppl on the autistic spectrum.
  • It's suggested that at birth babies are pre programmed to recognize human faces. After a few days babies recognize their mother because new born babies develop an automatic attachment to who is around them most. This happens in a different brain regions to later facial recognition.
  • By day 1: babies can differentiate make and female voices
  • By day 2: babies can differentiate unfamiliar languages (womb). 
  • By day 3: recognize mother's voice.
  • At 18 months become less egocentric. 
  • During mid puberty, facial processing is temporarily disrupted. Before synaptic pruning happens = too many?

8. Understanding other people
  • Guilt and embarrassment involve mentalizing.

9. The right sort of risks
  • Mismatch in maturation between the reward system and the prefrontal Cortez, which limits impulsivity and risk taking. Varies. 
  • Campaigns aimed at adolescence are more effective when aimed at their values (social, autonomy) than long term impacts. E.g health eating campaigns work better when it's focused on companies' manipulative, money making tactics. 

10. When things go wrong 
  • Adolescents who go on to develop schizophrenia have a greater decline in grey matter volume and a less pronounced increase in white matter.
  • Intelligent people have higher brain plasticity during early adolescence. How much the brain changes over time is mor important to IQ than its eventual thickness.
  • Adolescents with depression have increased activity and connections between regions that process emotions.

11. Educating the brain
  • Problems with neuroscience research - often small scale, hard to replicate and fund. Too persuasive
  • Education is still very important in adolesce cos brain is still changing. 

12. It's the journey that matters
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