When children hit puberty, their ability to learn a second language drops, they find it harder to learn their way around a new location and they are worse at detecting errors in cognitive tests.
Why is this? Sheryl Smith and her colleagues at the State University of New York now reckon that all of these behavioural changes could be due to a temporary increase in a chemical receptor that inhibits brain activity in an area responsible for learning.
In 2007, Smith’s team discovered that the number of these receptors soared in mice when they hit puberty, before falling back in adulthood. In their latest study, Smith’s team set about finding out if these receptor changes in mice might lead to impaired learning abilities, rather like those seen in pubescent humans.
The group examined the hippocampus – a region known to be involved in learning – in mouse brains. Sure enough, pubertal mice had seven times as many of the receptors as infant mice. In adulthood, the number of these receptors fell back to an intermediate level. The team was also able to examine individual neurons and could see that the extra receptors were being expressed specifically at “neural projections” – sites within the hippocampus known to be involved in learning. This was further evidence that the increase in receptors might affect learning. Finally, the group measured spatial learning abilities in the mice. The creatures were placed on a rotating platform, on which a stationary section delivered a mild electric shock. After a single shock, the infant mice learnt to dodge the danger zone. The pubertal mice, however, failed to learn to avoid it even after several rounds.
Smith reckons that the same mechanism might underlie the learning deficits teenagers experience in teenagers.
Read the article to find out how this might be reversed.
So if an increase in these receptors makes learning more difficult what is the benefit of this change?
Ha. Adam Curry will love this.
I think learning new stuff when older doesn’t *have* to be harder, it’s just that once we’re out of school, learning mode shuts off. Getting back into the groove is what’s hard, but once you’re there, I don’t think the learning process is all that difficult.
#3–lightnote==so your study of brain receptors and inhibitors in the laboratory over the years has brought you to a place informed enough to deny your own experience and a well accepted social given eh?
I’d write more but I misplaced my notepad.
I think the headline on this post is in error. The article applies to teenagers. Learning capability must return. There are people in the world who seem to learn things after actually growing up.
I learned 8080 assembler at the age of 31. Really comes in handy 30+ years later.
Makes sense. I was a model student until I was 13 or so.
Is the long term goal of this research to turn kids into sexless drones who are stuck in learning mode forever? Sounds like a good No Agenda topic.
#5: A member of the ‘literal Internet’, eh?
Learning capability doesn’t disappear, it simply decreases at puberty, according to the study.
#6: Sexless drones? Where does that come from? At 55, I would love to be able to learn (and remember) like I could when I was a kid. I’d pay good money for it.
Hippocampus chemical receptor pills; mmm-mmm-mmm!
I don’t mind getting physically old, what worries me is becoming close minded, set in my ways, unable to learn new shit, and forgetful.
#7 – “A member of the ‘literal Internet’, eh?”
Well….. Yeah!
Oh, come on. That title is totally misleading.
Learning is harder for teenagers, not “as you get older” in the context of the article. “As you get older” definitely implies it gets harder and harder constantly, from your early childhood to the day you die, which is not what the article is saying.
What a blatant misuse of the “literal Internet” meme!
#11: For crying out loud…
The research was specifically targeted at determining why learning becomes more difficult starting at puberty. But that’s where it starts, it doesn’t get harder then, get easier, then get harder in old age. It continually deteriorates as we age starting at puberty.
#13:
“Sheryl Smith and her colleagues at the State University of New York now reckon that all of these behavioural changes could be due to a temporary increase in a chemical receptor that inhibits brain activity in an area responsible for learning.”
In other words: the chemical receptor undergoes a temporary increase and makes learning more difficult (temporarily).
“In 2007, Smith’s team discovered that the number of these receptors soared in mice when they hit puberty, before falling back in adulthood.”
(…)
“Sure enough, pubertal mice had seven times as many of the receptors as infant mice. In adulthood, the number of these receptors fell back to an intermediate level.”
In other words: the learning difficulty kicks in at puberty, goes away in adulthood.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I was an extremely bright student until I was 13 years old. My performance dropped dramatically then. I always blamed certain circumstances that are not relevant right now, but maybe the real reason was mostly simply biological.
I postponed College by a few years because of personal circumstances. I entered College to study engineering at 26 and noticed I could learn things (especially Math) a lot more easily than when I was a teenager.
I still feel a lot smarter than when I was a teenager, but of course that is likely to have other explanations, like having a lot more information hence better judgment.
I to was a model student until I was 13, then I lost interest in school, because I discovered girls. This idea is crap. I learn new things every day and always have. Structured learning tends to be memorization not concepts. Especially at that time in education, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It just tends to be boring. Some children get bored easily. This doesn’t go away as we get older. Try training older adults. That’s what I do now, teaching a 50 plus year old who really doesn’t care about fundamental math concepts (they should be using in their chosen profession) is a bitch.
I think that in the childhood stage the child become so powerful to grasps the knowledge of new topic easier in compare to the elder child or a person.There has a reason behind that when the person is am young he /she easily accepts the new things with proper understanding and when the person become older he will less power to understand new thing fast.
Thanks
Katherine Williams
datarecoverysoftware.com
I don’t understand this article.
Hey, you kids! Get of my lawn!