Teenagers ignore their mothers because of their brains

If a moment comes when a person discovers the difference between verbs hear D listenthat is, without a doubt, when at your house teenage children. Yes, you can be heard, but there is always something more interesting to pay attention to. From the latest TikTok video to a fly flying around your room. This may seem like rudeness on the part of children, but the truth is that this is a sign that everything is going well in your brain. At least that’s the conclusion of a study recently published in Journal of Neurologywhich analyzes how children and adolescents respond to the voices of their mothers.

When they are twelve years old or younger, the very fact that they hear the voice of the person who gave birth to them in this world generates a storm of activity in their brainsespecially in reward systems. You could say it’s good for kids. hear the voice of their mothersso they take it very seriously. However, more or less At 13 the situation is changing. Almost any other voice causes a lot of activity in their brain, so they hear it, yes, but they don’t always listen.

It makes evolutionary sense. when we are small we are very dependent on our mothers. They feed us, clothe us, take care of us and help develop our first skills. Yes, today parents are also involved (or at least should), but our ancestors had tasks that were more related to parents. However, as we get older, we open up to the world and social interaction becomes very important. In the Stone Age and in the 21st century So it goes without saying that the brain would start rewarding us for paying attention to other voices.

The influence of mothers’ voices on the brain

A study just published by these scientists from Stanford University consists of two parts. The first was published in 2016 and included 24 children with an average age of 10.2 years. The one that has just been published is the second part in which the data 22 teenagers aged 13 to 16.5 years.

They all passed magnetic resonance function(fMRI) of their brains when they listened to two types of recordings with several unrelated words. In the first, they were spoken by the voice of their mothers. However, in the second it was an unknown person.

In a 2016 study, there was a lot of activity in areas related to reward system from the first entry. On the contrary, in adolescents, the greatest activity occurred with an unknown voice.

This does not mean that from the age of 13 we are no longer interested in listening to our mothers. But it gets stronger. pay attention to other people’s voicesbecause it helps to set those social links how useful they are to us when we become adults.

And not only reward systems showed activity. The authors of this study found that there were other areas of the brain that showed differences between the mother’s voice and the recording of the unknown person.

For example, adolescents with the second entry were more active in ventromedial prefrontal cortexresponsible for helping determine which information is more valuable.

What is this research for?

One could say that this study is meant to reassure fathers and mothers who are desperately trying to see their words flutter in the ears of their teenage children without reaching their brains. But in fact it is much more.

These scientists believe that the analysis of neural circuits involved in processing the voices of mothers and strangers this may help to better understand how the brain works in some diseases. For example, it has been observed that children with autism they don’t have that intense reaction to their mothers’ voice. This is data that can provide very useful information for understanding how they relate to their environment.

Of course, this will require more research, but it’s a good start. So far, this is the only study that shows that the way we respond to our mothers’ voice is changing. how we grow up. Luckily, they don’t care. And it is that no matter how our brains make us focus on other voices, mothers will always be there to support us. Because it doesn’t matter if we are children, teenagers or adults. They never stop missing us.