Biological Basis For Teenage Mood Swings Found

[boloboffin]

Anxiety is regulated by the brains's principal inhibitory neurotransmitter (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=65035), GABA (gamma-amino-butyric-acid) which counteracts the effect of glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain's limbic system.

Stress causes the release of a steroid known as THP (allopregnanolone) which in adult and pre-pubescent individuals increases the "calming" effect of GABA in the limbic system. However, Smith and her team found that THP had the opposite effect in adolescent mice.

It would appear that THP has two roles, one in the limbic system where it helps to calm things down, and another in the hippocampus where in adolescents it hots things up. The hippocampus is important for emotion regulation.

This paradoxical role of THP, said Smith and her team, is the reason for the adolescent brain behaving differently.

The adolescent brain develops a bumper crop of THP receptors. It seems to me that this would help an adolescent animal survive in a world where the parent isn't around that much anymore.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Then I'll take evolution's advice and leave my teenage son the hell alone.

~~ Paul

[Fnord]

My mother refers to the time that my 3 sisters went through puberty as their "Sybil Years (http://ask.yahoo.com/20020502.html)".

:wackyarghh: :wackycry: :wackytwitcy: :wackywacko: :wackyhuh:

[Slimething]

The adolescent brain develops a bumper crop of THP receptors. It seems to me that this would help an adolescent animal survive in a world where the parent isn't around that much anymore.

I understand the temptation but this article jumps from mice to humans without much evidence. Is there precursor work that adolescent mice have mood swings?

[CapelDodger]

I understand the temptation but this article jumps from mice to humans without much evidence. Is there precursor work that adolescent mice have mood swings?

Quite. It might be more productive to consider what might be common in mammalian adolescence. A shift of attention from the family to the wider peer-group suggests itself as common. Just flip the switch, make the familiar repulsive instead of comforting, push them off the teat. This is the age at which people are most vulnerable to cults, and don't the bastards know it.

[boloboffin]

Other versions of this study point that out, Slimething. In fact, I've seen that this study was only in female rats and can't be extrapolated to male rats! But another article said that the pathway being studied was very reliable in switching to humans.

So in other words, who knows at this point?

[Slimething]

Other versions of this study point that out, Slimething. In fact, I've seen that this study was only in female rats and can't be extrapolated to male rats! But another article said that the pathway being studied was very reliable in switching to humans.

So in other words, who knows at this point?

Thanks. I was wondering. It's very tempting to make leaps like that but the biochemistry of one species is not necessarily that of the other. Still, it's another step forward. And maybe an important one.

[Dancing David]

There are plenty of reasons adolescents are prone to mood swings, the list of hormones is amazing, strange the pituitary sets it all off (could be wrong it has been twenty years since I was in college) and then all the body starts to change, the brain goes through growth and maturation, the end of the neotany and into maturity. There emotions are all over the place, thier bodies feel like heck, they have no power in the system and many societies do a piss poor job of the transition.

I think parents are also a major cause of adolescent stress.

[Cuddles]

I'm sure there was an article in New Scientist about this a while ago, but I can't find it anywhere. It's interesting that they have only studied mice though, and not just for the normal "it's a different species" reasons. Humans are almost unique in having teenagers. Almost all animals have two stages of life - they start off as juveniles and then they mature to adults. Humans have a ridiculously long adolescent phase, up to 10 years or even more, where they are no longer juveniles but they are not yet really adults. Aside from the normal concerns of extrapolating results to different species, in this case it is hard to study because the teenagers simply don't exist in most animals. Although to be fair, I'm not sure about mice.

[Darat]

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5327550.stm for perhaps some related stuff.

[baron]

I never had mood swings or "adolescent stress". Based on all this great science it looks like I'm not human after all.

[Lisa Simpson]

Whyatica has never done the moody teenager thing. I can only hope my other two sons are as easy going through puberty.

[Slimething]

Whyatica has never done the moody teenager thing. I can only hope my other two sons are as easy going through puberty.

Lucky! My youngest has been a teenager his entire life!

[tracer]

It might be more productive to consider what might be common in mammalian adolescence.
UR NOT THE BOSS OF ME, MAN!!!!!!11one1

[bruto]

I think my kids all solved the mood swing issue by locking on to "surly" for about a 10 year stretch. My stepson did a little better, oscillating between sullen and actively grumpy.