How Does Prefrontal Cortex Affect Early Adulthood

Improved Essays
Currently we are considered an adult when we turn 18; that is too young. Studies have shown that the part of your brain used to make decisions, consider consequences, and use common sense fully matures between the age of 20 to 25. Due to this fact, are minds are really adults until between the age 20 to 25. The age when you are considered an adult should be 21 because your prefrontal cortex is almost completely matured.
What exactly is the prefrontal cortex? The prefrontal cortex covers the front part of the frontal lobe. This is the section of the brain that is in charge of planning complicated cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and controlling social behavior. According to Matthew Dahlitz who wrote Prefrontal Cortex on https://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/prefrontal-cortex/ says, “Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities,
…show more content…
The prefrontal cortex is in charge of our decision making; since a teenagers brain isn’t fully developed our decision making goes as far as instant gratification. So how can we trust 18-year-olds to make good life decisions when we can't think ahead? According to Gargi Talukder, who wrote Dicision-Making is Still a Work in Progress for Teenagers on https://brainconnection.brainhq.com/2013/03/20/decision-making-is-still-a-work-in-progress-for-teenagers/ , says “The results from the McLean study suggest that while adults can to use rational decision making processes when facing emotional decisions, adolescent brains are simply not yet equipped to think through things in the same way.” This explains why 18-year-olds make decisions that their mom wouldn’t do. As you can see teenagers are impulsive thanks to their brain, but how can they think ahead without their prefrontal cortex being equipped to do

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The brains of adolescents are still maturing and lack decision-making abilities, thought processing and the ability to understand the consequences of their actions.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision-making and memory but it can also shrink due to depression. Repeated stress may enlarge the amygdala and a hyperactive amygdala can lead to disrupted…

    • 140 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Maturity depends on the person and there isn’t one specific age that determines that you are an adult. Brains are not the same as looks and personality. They are different in each and every person. Also, if brains are not the same then how are their age boundaries that make them seem like they…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I choice to write about cognition and choice and The Prefrontal Cortex. We use the Prefrontal cortex(PFC) to make our principal decisions. The PFC and observes and evaluates the benefit-valuation activities going on in your brain and processes them to make decisions. Other parts of your brain, like your NAcc, send their basic gut feelings to the PFC and the PFC weighs the options and makes the final choice. The PFC uses conscious thought to consider the many sets of potentially consequences of an action.…

    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Your childhood is a time to figure out who you are and what you want to do. The frontal lobe plays a major role in this because it controls the way you act. Your personality changes indefinitely as your frontal lobe does. For example, Phineas Gage, a railroad worker, suffered a life-altering accident and miraculously survived. A large beam was thrust directly into his frontal lobe, and he managed to survive, but he was never the same afterward.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Drinking Age Essay

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages

    At what age is a person considered to be an adult? The age of eighteen usually represents adulthood. However, the drinking age is twenty- one due to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving group. “In 1984, Congress passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act, which required states to have a minimum drinking age of 21 for all types of alcohol consumption if they wanted to receive federal highway monies” (Main). This causing the states to be persuaded into changing their drinking age.…

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Prefrontal Influence

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Definition: The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain which is called the frontal lobe, specifically it the section (which is located at the top of the brain), that is responsible for helping us with making conscious: judgment decisions, solve problems, paying attention to detail, socializing, and intellect. Comment: I can definitely see the potential connection between the prefrontal cortex and the “social cognition” competency. Finding solutions in our social world requires high road thinking, solving these issues requires problem solving which is a conscious effort. Also, the competency “influence” is potentially relevant.…

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Multitask

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the article “Teens and Decision Making” by scholastic it states, “Since the brain is not fully developed until the early 20's... may put him or her at a higher risk of making a decision the teen could later regret.” The prefrontal cortex not being fully developed leads to rushed decisions based on emotion…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It has been proven time and time again that the frontal cortex of the brain, the part responsible for problem solving, judgement, impulse control, and sexual behavior, is not fully developed until twenty-five. As such, leaving an eighteen year old without any guidance only encourages drug use, alcoholism, and teenage pregnancies. In the article, “When Should a Person be Considered an Adult?”, author Jenn Savedge explains how teens take risks and seem to be unable to get their lives together until they hit their mid twenties (Savedge). An article from Scholastic’s “Teens and Decision Making: What Brain Science Reveals” further argues Savedge’s point by explaining that the habit of making rash decisions happens more in teenagers than adults. Society would more than likely see a decrease in teenage crime rates and pregnancies if the law was to increase the age of responsibility to the aforementioned…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The legal age of an adult today is eighteen years old in all fifty states of America. The permissible age of becoming an adult changed in 1971 due to the high demand needed for the armed forces. Once the legal age to join the armed forces changed to eighteen-years-old, the rules began to spiral out of control and many laws. This would also include getting married, voting, purchasing property and even education decisions began to all change from twenty-one years old to eighteen-years-old. The government has inconsistent ideas on what an adult at eighteen-years-old can do.…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ag Age Research Paper

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A person only truly becomes an adult when they become mature enough to act like one. “Most people think that becoming an adult is all about age, but in all actuality it is their level of maturity that maters” (S.P Jester page # 3) This quote is a good example of the importance of maturity because it explains that physical age is not as important as mental age. Becoming an adult is not just about age, it's about a person's level of maturity and their ability to handle the world around them, although I believe this to be true, some do…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The maturity of this fraction of the brain at age 18 is definitely enough for a person to be able to make the best choices for his or herself. Along with the scientific studies, there is much more notable reasoning to explain…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to what what is the age of responsibility by Alan Greenblatt he point out how most adult actions can be done by 21 year old and states “most people are capable of performing many adult functions by the early age of 16-21”(21). This thus makes it evident that at age 21 almost all people are able to make age proper decisions. It does not take 21 years for a young adult to be taken seriously. The word adult The word adult should give…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The prefrontal cortex does not develop until the mid-twenties (Edmonds p.8). This section of the brain “weighs outcomes, forms judgments and controls impulses and emotions” (Edmonds p.6). Consequently, adolescents who have undeveloped prefrontal cortices cannot reason as well as adults…

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The frontal lobe is often the area of the brain that is damaged in motor vehicle accidents as well as sports accidents as it is placed in the front of the skull, an area that could be damaged due to its location. For example, in a motor vehicle accident if the head were to hit the windshield it would be the frontal lobe that hit first. The frontal lobe is responsible for multiple functions of the body such as emotions, motor capabilities and cognitive impairments meaning that if it is injured those areas of a person will be affected. First, the emotions or neurobehavior of a person may be affected in ways such as being over- emotional, having a flat affect (emotionless), mood swings and alexithymia, which is the inability to understand the emotions in others. For example if a person had alexithymia they would not be able to tell that when a person was smiling that they were happy.…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays