Teenagers’ brains process risk differently when Mum is around

The traffic lights turn amber: should you brake or accelerate on through? If there’s a teenager at the wheel, the chances are he or she will put their foot down and keep going. Teenagers love taking risks, more so than any other age group. This is partly down to the immaturity of the teen brain: they do not yet show the same connectivity between frontal decision making areas and deeper reward-related brain areas, as compared with adults. But there’s also a social element. When an adult is around, teens tend to take fewer risks, and their brains show less reward-related activity after taking a risk, a phenomenon that psychologists call “social scaffolding” because it is as if the adult presence is helping the teen to attain adult-like behaviour. A new study in Developmental Science builds on these findings and makes the claim that a teenager’s brain is influenced to a greater extent by the presence of his or her mother than by an unfamiliar adult.


João Moreira and his colleagues scanned the brains of 23 15-year-olds (9 girls) while they played a risk-based game that involved going through a set of 26 traffic lights as quickly as possible and deciding at each set whether to accelerate or brake as the lights turned amber. Accelerating saved time usually, but also carried the risk of a crash which would lead to a greater delay than braking. The teens played the game twice: once in the presence of their mother who was located in the scan control room, and the other time in the presence of an unfamiliar female professor who was described as an expert in adolescent driving behaviour (some played the game with mum present first, others with the stranger present first).

There was a tendency for the teens to take fewer risks when their mum was present, as compared with the professor, but this difference didn’t reach statistical significance. However, at a neural level there were statistically significant differences between the conditions: when mum was present, the teens’ brains showed more reward-related brain activity after making safe decisions and less reward-related brain activity after making risky decisions. Mum’s supervision seemed to make caution a more pleasurable approach, at least at a neural level.

There was also an important difference between conditions in terms of the functional connectivity between decision making and reward-related brain regions in the brain. In the mum condition, but not the adult stranger condition, there was a negative correlation in the activity between these regions: a more mature pattern typical of that seen in adults.

Finally, the teens’ brains showed more activity in regions associated with perspective-taking when taking risks in the mum condition, perhaps suggesting they were concerned with what she might think.

The researchers interpreted their findings as suggesting there is something unique about the influence of a parent (or a mother, at least) on the way a teenager’s brain processes risk, which could have practical implications. For example risk-prevention educational programmes for teenagers, which often struggle to make a difference, might be more likely to be effective if parents are directly involved.

Unfortunately, the study is hampered by several methodological issues such as the small sample size and the lack of a baseline control condition: the latter means it’s not clear if differences between the conditions are caused by the benefits of a mother’s presence or the opposite effect of an unfamiliar adult. Also, many issues are left unanswered, such as: would a father have the same apparent effect as a mother? And does the quality of the parent-teen relationship matter?

SOURCE:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/01/10/teenagers-brains-process-risk-differently-when-mum-is-around/(accessed 21.1.17)

What are teens hoping to feel when they self-harm?

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The number of teenagers deliberately hurting themselves is on the increase. For example, the latest data for England show that over 13,000 15- to 19-year-old girls and 4,000 boys were admitted to hospital for this reason in the 12-month period up to June 2013, an increase of 10 per cent compared with the previous 12-month period. More than ever we need to understand why so many young people are resorting to this behaviour.

A common motivation teenagers give is that non-suicidal self-harm provides a way to escape unpleasant thoughts and emotions. Another motive, little explored before now, is that self-harm is a way to deliberately provoke a particular desired feeling or sensation. A new paper from US researchers has explored this aspect of self-harm, known as "automatic positive reinforcement" (APR).

Edward Selby and his colleagues gave 30 teenagers who self-harm (average age 17; 87 per cent were female) a digital device to carry around for two weeks. Twice a day, the device beeped and the teens were asked to record their recent thoughts of self-harm, any episodes of self-harm, their motives, their actual experiences of what it felt like, as well as answering other questions.

Just over half the sample reported engaging in at least one instance of self-harm that was motivated by wanting to experience a particular sensation (and 35 per cent of all self-harm behaviours had this motive). The most common sensation the teenagers sought was "satisfaction" (45 per cent of them), followed by "stimulation" (31 per cent) and "pain" (24 per cent). Those were the hoped for sensations. In fact, pain was experienced more often than it was sought; stimulation was experienced as often as it was sought; and satisfaction was experienced less often than the teenagers wanted.

There were differences between the teenagers who self-harmed in order to produce a particular feeling and those who didn't have this motive. The former group self-harmed more often during the study (and in the past) and they thought about self-harm more often and for longer. Those seeking a particular feeling from self-harm also engaged in more other risky behaviours including using alcohol, binge eating and impulsive spending. Zooming in on the different sensation motives, those teens seeking pain and stimulation tended to self harm more than those who sought satisfaction.

This study has made an important contribution to an under-researched aspect of self-harm, although it leaves many questions unanswered. For instance, one explanation for the more frequent self-harming observed among those who say they self-harm because they want to experience pain, is that the act triggers pain-relief mechanisms in the brain - a form of euphoria. And yet, self-harming was less frequent among those who said they self-harmed for satisfaction. This potential contradiction could be due to vagueness in the meanings of the words used - is the pursuit of euphoria (via pain) different from the pursuit of satisfaction? Such ambiguities will have to be addressed by future research.

Despite this, and the small sample size, Selby and his team said their novel findings already have clinical implications. "If alternative healthy behaviours can be identified that might induce a similar reinforcing sensation, then those healthy behaviours may be able to be harnessed as a more effective alternative to non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)," they concluded. "For example if one purpose of NSSI is to derive pain, then exercise might function as an effective alternative as moderate levels of exercise might have a similarly painful or distracting effect that can help cope with upsetting emotions."

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SOURCE: 

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: http://www.researchdigest.org.uk/ (accessed 31.3.14)

Edward A. Selby, Matthew K. Nock, and Amy Kranzler (2013). How Does Self-Injury Feel? Examining Automatic Positive Reinforcement in Adolescent Self-Injurers with Experience Sampling. Psychiatry Research DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2013.12.005

Author weblink: http://psych.rutgers.edu/faculty-profiles-a-contacts/139-edward-selby

Further reading. The sight of their own blood is important to some people who self-harm. http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/sight-of-their-own-blood-is-important.html

More: http://www.bps-research-digest.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/self-harm

What is cognitive behavioural therapy like for a teenager?

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Most research into CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) for teenagers has focused on whether it works or not, with largely positive results. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to finding out what it is actually like for a teenager to undertake CBT.

Deanna Donnellan and her colleagues have made an initial effort to plug this gap, conducting in-depth interviews with three teenage girls who'd completed a course of individual CBT, asking them about their perception of the therapy and what it meant to them.

The pseudonymous interviewees were Mary, who had problems with sickness and anxiety; Katherine, who had anxieties around her appearance and restricted her eating; and Samantha, who experienced low mood and practised self-harm. The teenagers were aged 15 years on average.

One the main themes to emerge related to progress and change. Mary saw the therapy in terms of helping to remove her problems; Samantha saw it as more than that, as a chance to move forward in her life; and Katherine felt she had developed new perspectives on life and the future. All three experienced increases to their self-efficacy (their confidence in their own abilities). Donnellan and her colleagues pointed out a related practical insight here - they found the teenagers clearly had "ultimate goals" for therapy (such as a growth in character or a return to "normality"), which could be hidden beneath the immediate aims of the CBT.

Another key theme to emerge related to engagement with therapy. The teens were mostly disengaged and passive at the start, but they gradually began to participate more. Mary achieved this engagement by taking some control - she agreed to take on some of her homework tasks around eating, but refused others. Samantha didn't say much at the start, but came to realise that she could benefit from exploring her emotional issues. Katherine felt desperate and unable to make decisions at the start, but the graded nature of the therapy helped her feel more stable.

The researchers said issues of control were very important in teen therapy given that most teenagers' therapy will have been instigated by their parents. "Power and its ability to impact negatively upon therapeutic potential might ... be mitigated by a process of collaboration and encouraging the client to negotiate their position in the therapeutic relationship," they said.

What about rapport with the therapist? Although she benefited from therapy, Mary was not on the same page as her therapist:

"for an example she might use someone being scared of dogs and how the thoughts of the dog biting them would make them cross the road (...) it was like relates nowhere near to like feeling sick and how feeling sick affects ya it was nothing near that".

Mary blamed part of this on her therapist seeming "really old". "I think for most teenagers," Mary said, "... you'd feel easier to talk to someone who, not obviously dead young, but d'ya know not someone in their 50s or something or like old." In contrast, Samantha was pleasantly surprised at her therapist's ability to relate to her situation:

"It was a bit disconcerting cos she like, not knew about it, but knew how to like deal with all this stuff, which I wasn't entirely expecting but it was helpful."

The final theme related to the structure of the way therapy was delivered. Mary felt like some of the progress was too slow and there was frequent repetition. For Samantha, the structure and predictability of CBT was an advantage, and the boundaries laid down by her therapist helped her feel safe. Katherine also liked the graded pace of therapy, with the gentle start helping her to feel more comfortable.

Donnellan's team said their interviews were a "tentative" first step towards finding out what CBT is like for young people. The findings demonstrate "the importance of the process of therapy, just as much as the content," they said. Based on this, some practical recommendations include: recognising the importance of the first stages of therapy for engaging with a teenage client; addressing the teen client's preconceptions about therapy; and finding out the pace and style they'd like the therapy to progress at.

"The service delivering CBT needs to promote the young person as being in control from the outset," the researchers said, "regardless of who is making the decision to access therapy. This may set the scene for them to develop control over their problems and establish stability in their life."

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SOURCE:

RESEARCH DIGEST: http://www.researchdigest.org.uk/

Donnellan, D., Murray, C., and Harrison, J. (2012). An investigation into adolescents' experience of cognitive behavioural therapy within a child and adolescent mental health service. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 18 (2), 199-213 DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359104512447032

Author weblink:http://www.lancs.ac.uk/shm/study/doctoral_study/dclinpsy/new/

Why teens should have their music and sports lessons in the evening?

While you sleep your brain learns. Research with rats has shown how they rehearse maze-routes in their brains whilst they're dozing. And human research has demonstrated that learned material is better recalled after a sound sleep as opposed to a disturbed night. But what hasn't been looked at before now is the optimum time to leave between learning and sleeping.

A team led by Johannes Holz has done just that, finding that "procedural learning" (practice at the kind of skill that you do, rather than talk about) is more effective right before sleep. Learning factual material, by contrast, (dependent on "declarative memory"), was found to be more effective when done in the afternoon, seven and a half hours before sleep, although the evidence for this was less convincing and should be treated with caution.

The researchers recruited 50 teenage girls (aged 16-17) to learn a series of word pairs and a finger-tapping task, either at 3pm in the afternoon or 9pm at night. The performance level of the afternoon and night groups was equivalent at the end of these initial learning tasks.

With the tapping task, it was the girls who learned right before sleep who showed the greatest gains in performance when they were re-tested after 24 hours and again 7 days later. Holz and his colleagues can't be sure why procedural learning is more effective just before sleep, but they think it probably has to do with the effect of sleep on protein synthesis and gene expression.

In contrast to the tapping task, performance on the word pairs after 24 hours was better in the afternoon-learning group. At the 7 day word-pairs test there was no difference in afternoon or evening learners. The fact that declarative learning was more effective in the afternoon suggests that this type of hippocampus-dependent memory has a different time course from procedural learning.

The findings, though preliminary, have obvious practical implications. "We propose that declarative memories, such as vocabulary words, should be studied in the afternoon and motor skills, like playing soccer or piano, should be trained in the late evening," the researchers said. "Most parents among us would have preferred the opposite results."
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Source:

 

PSYCHOLOGY DIGEST : http://www.researchdigest.org.uk/

Holz J, Piosczyk H, Landmann N, Feige B, Spiegelhalder K, Riemann D, Nissen C, and Voderholzer U (2012). The Timing of Learning before Night-Time Sleep Differentially Affects Declarative and Procedural Long-Term Memory Consolidation in Adolescents. PloS one, 7 (7) PMID: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22808287