UCLA CDA Co-Executive Directors, Adriana Galván and Andrew Fuligni, spoke with PBS NewsHour’s William Brangham about why sleep is so important to youth mental health.
How Teenagers’ Lack of Sleep is Taking a Toll on Their Mental Health
How Teenagers’ Lack of Sleep is Taking a Toll on Their Mental Health
Additional Resources
This fact sheet gives an overview of adolescent brain development and explains how access to resources, opportunities, and meaningful relationships during adolescence can build connections within our brains and with the world around us that support us into adulthood.
Brain development during adolescence is fundamentally a story of connections.
Around age 9 or 10, hormonal changes kick off a period of intense learning and development, when brain cells form, strengthen, and streamline connections in response to our experiences more rapidly than in any period of life after early childhood.
Activity increases especially in the brain networks that propel us to explore the world, learn from our mistakes, and connect with others in new ways. In turn, these new experiences prompt our brain cells to connect with other neurons in ways that help us adapt to new events and new information. These neural connections become stronger the more we use them, while unused connections are pruned away, helping the brain become more efficient at acquiring and mastering new skills and new ways of thinking.
This brain-building learning happens through direct experiences in our environments and interactive, responsive relationships—with our families and peers, in our classrooms and neighborhoods, in community activities, and even online. The resources, opportunities, and experiences we as adults provide in and out of school can help young people’s brains build the extensive networks of connections that will manage the complex knowledge and behaviors needed to navigate adulthood.
Learning by Exploring the World Around Us
One of the networks that changes significantly with the increase in hormones and dopamine at the beginning of puberty is the “reward system” in our brain. Heightened activity in this system increases the feeling of reward we get from exploring the world, taking risks, and learning from the results.
Meanwhile, the network of brain regions that make up the “social brain” also changes during adolescence. These changes help us tune into social and emotional cues, like facial expressions or social rejection and approval, and increase our desire to earn respect and contribute to others. It also enables us to learn the nuances of changing social contexts in ways that help prepare us for adult relationships.
The prefrontal cortex (the region of the brain that orchestrates critical thinking and behavioral control) undergoes its most rapid period of development during adolescence. It builds on many other systems within the brain to manage our responses to the flood of new information and intensifying emotions. Engaging with other people and our environment and learning from our successes and our mistakes, known as “action-based learning,” helps shape the prefrontal cortex by strengthening the connections within it and between it and other brain networks. We learn through repeated practice—which includes trying and sometimes failing—what is adaptive and appropriate in different situations and how to guide our behavior accordingly, in ways that equip us to pursue new forward-looking goals.
When adults provide youth with opportunities to try new things, to practice navigating emotions, and to learn from failures along the way, it helps build the brain connections that we all need to grow into healthy, thriving adults.
Policies, Experiences, and Mindsets Shape the Connecting Brain
Although we can continue to learn new skills and behaviors as adults, the adaptability of the brain during adolescence means that these connections are much more likely to form quickly in response to experiences. The extent of these changes make the adolescent years a critical window when investments in the right policies and programs for youth can shape long-term positive development.
Likewise, this makes the adolescent years a time when negative experiences including racism, other forms of discrimination, poverty, or abuse can create steeper hills for young people to climb toward a healthy adulthood. When adults ensure that all young people, especially those who have experienced earlier adversity, have what they need along their journey, they can build the skills and capacities they need to thrive as adults. This includes opportunities to explore and take healthy risks, to connect with and contribute to those around us, to make decisions and learn from the outcomes, to develop a healthy sense of identity, and to rely on support from parents or other caring adults.
Understanding how and why the brain develops during adolescence lets us provide the support young people need to build healthy connections—in their world and within their brains—that will help our youth and our communities thrive.
Six Insights to Support Adolescents’ Fundamental Need to Contribute to Others
Science Spotlight | Education | Community Engagement | Mental Health | Out-of-School Time
This spotlight provides research-based insights into how opportunities to contribute and to have those contributions recognized can build autonomy, agency, and a healthy sense of purpose during adolescence.
Adolescence is an important time for contributing to others. During the developmental period between childhood and adulthood, we forge our sense of who we are and how we want to contribute to the world. Throughout our adolescent years, our physical, cognitive, and emotional capabilities mature in ways that allow us to contribute to our friends, family, schools, and broader community in deeper, more meaningful ways than when we were younger.
Opportunities to contribute, to reflect on the meaning of our contributions, and to have our contributions recognized can build our autonomy, agency, and identity and support our sense of purpose—the forward-looking feeling that our lives are directed and significant. All of these are important to positive development during adolescence, helping us navigate adversity and set and achieve goals in ways that can impact us into adulthood.
Brain and Behavioral Development Makes Adolescence a Key Period for Contribution
One of the important developmental tasks of our adolescent years is learning who we are and how we can contribute to the world around us. Contribution becomes especially important during our adolescent years—the beginning of puberty, around 9 or 10 years old, initiates a series of interacting changes in our bodies, social lives, and within our brains that make us particularly sensitive to our social environments as we continue to build and refine our cognitive and social abilities.
During adolescence, our sensitivity to social interactions increases and combines with other developmental changes including a growing ability to consider the needs and perspectives of others, motivation to explore and pursue new experiences,6 and a new desire to create meaningful relationships and feel respected by others.
Neural Systems Underlying Contribution
Research has highlighted a network of brain regions that support our emotional and social responses when we contribute to others.
The ventral striatum, which is active in how we process rewards, matures relatively early in adolescence. High levels of activity in the ventral striatum are associated with greater tendency for contributing behavior and a heightened ability to understand the perspectives of others. The temporoparietal junction and the medial prefrontal cortex, which continue to develop into our early 20s, are also involved in contributing to others, supporting cognitive functions such as memory and attention as well as sociability.
Opportunities to Contribute During Adolescence Support Physical and Mental Well-Being While Strengthening Our Communities
Creating opportunities for adolescents to engage with and contribute to the broader community can help foster social and emotional skills, cultivate positive relationships, shape identity, promote civic engagement, and impact well-being across physical, cognitive, social, and emotional domains.
Social and emotional development
Research suggests that contribution, service to others, and other prosocial activities play an important role in adolescents’ social and emotional development. Opportunities to contribute and to see contribution modeled by others can increase young people’s empathy and compassion, two essential skills for building positive and meaningful social relationships. Indeed, adolescents who engage in helping behaviors more frequently tend to have stronger relationships with their peers and are also more likely to be accepted and popular among their peers.
Mental and physical health
Research has linked contributing in adolescence to lower rates of depression as well as to decreases in depressive symptoms over time. For example, one study found that young people tend to experience higher positive moods on days they engage in helping activities. Another study showed that an intervention that assigned youth to perform acts of kindness for others increased positive affect and decreased stress in adolescents who tend to be more altruistic.
Contributing may also support physical health. Volunteering and other forms of contribution have been linked to lower inflammatory markers, cholesterol levels, and body mass index, and may reduce the negative effects of stress on health outcomes.
Adolescents with higher levels of depression show especially strong associations between prosocial (positive or helpful) behavior and positive mood, suggesting that interventions that support contributing might be especially effective for adolescents who are depressed. The positive impact of volunteering on adolescents’ depressive symptoms has even spurred experts to argue that volunteering should be incorporated into existing treatments for adolescent depression.
Social identity formation and belonging
Contributing within a community involves navigating new social environments and working with diverse groups of people towards a common goal. This process can help young people gain a deeper understanding of their role in society. Recognizing (and being recognized for) the impact of their actions on others can help young people feel a sense of purpose and self-efficacy, improve self-esteem, and boost a positive sense of identity.
Contribution can also help youth feel a sense of belonging and connectedness, increasing their motivation to improve society and enhancing their sense of civic responsibility. Research suggests that the skills young people learn from contributing support academic and career success, as contribution has been linked to better academic performance in adolescents. In addition, more civic engagement (including volunteering, voting, and activism) in adolescence is linked to higher income and education level in adulthood.
Educational outcomes
Incorporating contribution into classrooms and school curricula can help support positive development in adolescence. For example, a school-based intervention for middle school students that provides activities, conversations, and lessons about prosocial behavior was shown to increase helping behavior and decrease aggression40 and increase students’ grades by the end of middle school.
INSIGHT: Adolescents with higher levels of depression show especially strong associations between prosocial (positive or helpful) behavior and positive mood, suggesting that interventions that support contributing might be especially effective for adolescents who are depressed. The positive impact of volunteering on adolescents’ depressive symptoms has even spurred experts to argue that volunteering should be incorporated into existing treatments for adolescent depression.
An after-school program called Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES) was designed to promote middle school students’ positive behaviors despite institutional disadvantages (such as racism) they might have faced. The goals of the program included providing students with opportunities to learn about African history and African-American contributions to U.S. history, and to work to prevent youth violence and make other positive changes in their community. After completing the YES program, the young people involved were more likely to show helping behaviors toward others and less likely to engage in verbal or physical aggression. These benefits continued over the following year and were especially strong for Black youth, highlighting the potential for fostering positive youth development through programs that help youth develop confidence in themselves, think critically about their community, and become involved in community change efforts.
- Values Alignment: Contribution is most impactful when it aligns with a young person’s interests, values, and skills. Conversely, a mismatch between contributing activities and a young person’s interests, values, and skills may lead to stress and negative outcomes.
- Agency: Youth should have agency or a role in choosing the type of service, its parameters, and its evaluation.
- Impact: Adult facilitators should ensure that the project has a real impact, even if the impact is only on an individual person. Youth will discern if they are simply doing “busy work.”
- Reflection: To reap positive developmental impacts from service and attach meaning to the experience, youth should be given opportunities to reflect through discussion, journaling, or other outlets–either individually or with peers.
- Challenge: Youth develop a sense of efficacy through opportunities that challenge them to stretch themselves or otherwise extend some effort in attainable ways as they contribute to others.
- Connection: Social connections are important for adolescents and can encourage youth to contribute to others. Research has shown that adolescents’ (but not adults’) real-world helping is guided by their friends’ prosocial moral values. And when youth provide emotional support to their family, they are more likely to support their friends the next day, and vice versa.
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In our first quarterly Research Roundup, we review recent research that highlights the importance of exploration, the impact of school and neighborhood environments, charitable giving, and the positive influence of peers during our adolescent years.
We are excited to introduce our first quarterly Research Roundup–an overview of some of the recent research that highlights the important learning and growth of our adolescent years, and how adults can support positive development.
You can suggest research articles for future roundups by emailing cda@psych.ucla.edu or sign up to receive the quarterly research roundup in your inbox.
- Real-world exploration increases throughout adolescence and is related to positive affect, risk-taking, and social connectedness.
- The school environment is associated with brain connectivity and mental health in adolescents.
- Neighborhood safety is associated with adolescent cognitive and brain function.
- Changes in brain activity related to rewards for others is associated with increased charitable giving in older adolescents compared to younger adolescents.
- The presence of a peer leads to more prosocial behavior in adolescents by enhancing sensitivity to others’ outcomes.
Exploration & Risk Taking
Oh, the places you’ll go! Real-world exploration is beneficial for adolescent well-being.
Natalie Saragosa-Harris and co-authors examined adolescent risk taking by using geolocation tracking to record the amount of exploration–visiting new places or taking new routes–in daily movement patterns of about 60 adolescents and adults (ages 13 to 27) over a three-month period in New York City. Older adolescents, ages 18 to 21, were most likely to explore, meaning that their movements around the city varied the most over the course of the day. Both adolescents and adults felt better on days when they explored more, and more exploration was linked to larger social networks. Interestingly, adolescents also showed a link between real-world exploration and self-reported risk-taking behaviors. (Psychological Science, September 2022)
- Why this is important
This is the first study to link real-world exploration to positive well-being and risk-taking in adolescents, highlighting how important it is for teenagers to have opportunities to explore and try new things.
Environments & Brain Development
Got school on the brain: Favorable school environments associated with brain functioning in early adolescence.
Divyangana Rakesh and colleagues explored associations between how adolescents rated their school environment—based on factors such as availability of extracurricular activities, how supported and safe they feel, and their relationships with teachers—and brain development in more than 10,000 early adolescents, ages 9 to 10. School environment ratings were related to connectivity in higher-brain networks that are important for cognition and attention. The patterns of connectivity within these networks were associated with adolescent mental health. Factors including extracurricular activities and support of teachers showed the strongest associations with brain connectivity and positive mental health. (Biological Psychiatry, January 2023)
- Why this is important
This study highlights the importance of positive school environments (including having supportive teachers and available extracurricular programs) in adolescence by showing how a supportive school climate affects connectivity of brain networks, which in turn can contribute to positive mental health in young adolescents.
The importance of neighborhood safety for brain and cognitive function in adolescents
May Conley and colleagues examined the link between neighborhood threats, cognitive performance, and brain activity in more than 10,000 9- and 10-year-olds across the United States. Results showed that youth who reported high neighborhood threat or who reported high threat across the contexts of their neighborhood, family, and school performed worse on an emotional-cognitive task. (The task involved quickly indicating whether a neutral, happy, or fearful face matched a previously viewed image.)
In youth who reported high neighborhood threat, their low performance on the task was linked to lower activity in regions of the brain’s “executive network” that are important for cognition and self-control. This may be because in unsafe environments, the brain is working to assess potential threats, which makes it harder to perform well on cognitive tasks or engage in self-control. Results also suggested that the combination of neighborhood threats and less activity in the brain’s executive network contributes to risk for externalizing problems (negative feelings directed outward, such as aggression and delinquent behavior) in adolescence. (Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, January 2023)
- Why this is important
This study highlights the importance of ensuring safe neighborhoods to support healthy cognitive development and positive behaviors.
Contribution
Choosing charity: Reward-related neural response and age-related increase in charitable donations in adolescence
Jochem Spaans and colleagues examined changes by age in donations to charity and in brain activity related to getting rewards for oneself or for a charity in a group of 10- to 22-year-olds. Participants played a digital game in which they saw gains for themselves or for a charity, and also decided whether to give to the charity or gain rewards for themselves. Older adolescents chose to donate to charity more often than younger adolescents and reported less enjoyment when receiving rewards overall. Across all participants, activity in the brain regions involved in processing rewards was higher when receiving rewards for self than for charity. However, this difference decreased with age–older participants’ brain activity was similar when receiving rewards for themselves as for charity, and was linked to their increase in charitable donations. (Journal of Research on Adolescence, November 2022)
- Why this is important
This study highlights the increase in charitable behavior as adolescents get older.
Putting the “pro” back in “prosocial”: The presence of a peer increases prosocial behavior in adolescents
In this study, Nicolette Sullivan and colleagues examined how 58 high school juniors and seniors responded to a digital game involving rewards that could benefit themselves, their friend, or both equally. When the adolescents were alone, they tended to allocate more money to themselves in the decision-making game. However, when their peer, a close friend, was present, adolescents were more likely to provide more rewards for that peer. Adolescents also responded more quickly to outcomes that benefited their friend when that friend was with them. This suggests that adolescents are sensitive to outcomes that benefit others in the presence of a peer, and this effect is linked to more prosocial behavior. (Scientific Reports, August 2022)
- Why this is important
This study suggests that during adolescence, the presence of a peer can promote positive, helping behaviors.