At a young age, the brain can not cope with fear

As a young brain perceives different fear: just afraid it keeps negative emotions even after the disappearance of the causes of fear. This is not the result of an illness, abnormal development or stress. This, according to researchers from the Medical College at Cornell Weill-Cornell University (USA), the common feature of the maturing brain.The study included psychological and neurophysiological experiments. Participants - children, teenagers and adults - were given headphones and asked to observe the sequence of geometric shapes, floating on the computer screen. One of the figures was accompanied by a sharp, unpleasant sound. In the end, the fear at the sight of such a figure becomes a reflex: when it occurs in humans have changed the physiological indicators that recorded instruments. The next day the guinea again shows the sequence of figures, but now it is happening without the unpleasant stimulus. Children and adults quickly realize that there is nothing to fear, but the teenagers 12-17 years is still waiting for an unpleasant sound, and when the corresponding figure them just tossed into the pot.The same results were obtained in experiments with rats. However, in this case, the researchers could literally look at the animal brain. As the authors write in the journal PNAS, in prelimbicheskom infralimbicheskom and areas of the prefrontal cortex of young rats, they found features that differentiate them from adult animals and very young babies. The first of these areas is included in the acquisition and processing of "terrible" of emotions, and the second is responsible for their expulsion from the emotional realm. As it turned out, the young and adult rats "casts out fear" cortex had a high level of synaptic plasticity, and the rat-teens - low.In other words, young people in the area longer neural circuits rebuilt, because fear lasts longer. Although neurophysiological studies were performed on rats, the researchers believe that just as things are in the human brain.These data explain the high level of anxiety, neurosis and depression among adolescents compared with adults. Quite possibly, it will develop an effective way of dealing with teenage depression - unless, of course, find a way to speed up the setting of synapses in the "strahopererabatyvayuschem" of the brain.Prepared according to Medical Xpress.