Sarah-Jayne Blakemore on teenage brains

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2015

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Until recently, it was thought that human brain development was all over by early childhood but research in the last decade has shown that the adolescent brain is still changing into early adulthood. Jim Al-Khalili talks to pioneering cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore who is responsible for much of the research which shows that our brains continue to develop through the teenage years. She discusses why teenagers take risks and are so susceptible to influence from their peers as well as her childhood growing up with the constant threat of attacks from animal rights groups.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the
0:03.8	podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.
0:08.6	It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.
0:15.0	What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism
0:20.0	and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.
0:23.7	And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject
0:28.3	you might not even have thought you were interested in.
0:30.2	Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,
0:36.1	you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.
0:39.7	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific.
0:43.4	First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
0:46.1	I'm Jim Alleili and my mission is to interview the most
0:49.5	fascinating and important scientists alive today and to find out what makes them tick.
0:55.0	My guest today is unusual in that her area of study barely existed when she first started working in it just 12 years ago.
1:04.0	Since then she's been responsible for an explosion of research in the field.
1:08.0	Sarah Jane Blakemore is professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and is fascinated
1:14.8	by the teenage brain.
1:17.2	Until recently it was thought that brain development is all over by early childhood, but it's
1:22.2	her discoveries that have helped reveal the intricate
1:25.0	and vast changes the adolescent brain still has to make on the way to adulthood.
1:30.1	She's passionate that teenagers shouldn't be demonised or made the butt of jokes, but instead
1:35.9	should have our sympathy and that we should examine carefully how we teach and nurture them.
	...

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