Scientists unravel mysteries of 'confused' adolescent brain

Teenage mood swings were immortalised in Harry Enfield's comedy character Kevin. But now scientists are researching exactly why he and his real-life peers feel everything is "so unfair".

Psychiatrists at Cambridge University in the UK have started a £5-million study of the adolescent brain in which they aim to pinpoint changes in the way it is wired and how these changes are responsible for the impulsive and emotional behaviour so familiar to parents of teens.

The project will investigate the way brains change as a person matures and whether these changes are what cause teenagers to gradually shed their sometimes antisocial behavioural patterns.

The researchers also hope to learn more about how mental disorders develop in young adults.

Professor Ed Bullmore, one of the psychiatrists involved in the study, told BBC News: "MRI scans will give us very good pictures of how the anatomy of the brain changes over the course of development.

"We are particularly interested in how the tissue at the centre of the brain, known as white matter, might change over the course of development."

He believes the scans will show gradual changes in the white matter of brains as it starts to bring under control the impulses caused by hormones.

More adult behaviour is expected to result from the brain changes observed.

Dr Becky Inkster, another scientist working on the study, said: "Arguably we have all been there and it is a very awkward, complex and confusing time of life.

"To be able to express oneself is quite difficult. So, by the use of imaging and other tools, we can really tap into these features of the adolescent brain and understand how they develop over time as they become a young adult."

The psychiatrists also hope to identify whether psychotic disorders could be caused by abnormal brain development in adolescence.

Bullmore said it was hoped this might help alter the perception of mental illness in young people as a "moral problem" or "random disaster".

He said it might even be possible in future to speed up the process of maturing in a teenage brain, for example by developing computerised games or other methods of training to help young people develop more adult cognitive skills faster.