Amygdalas, Anatomy and Autonomy

Jerry Gramckow

“Adolescents’ brains function in fundamentally different ways than adults’ brains do.”

Ever watch Malcolm in the Middle? Sure, like so many of today’s sitcoms, it gets laughs by poking fun at families: Mom’s a tyrant, Dad’s a befuddled adolescent in a grown-up body, and all the sons (no daughters in this dysfunctional family) are irreverent troublemakers. But it is funny.

Adding to Malcolm’s humor is the show’s perspective: Malcolm, the middle son, who often talks directly to the TV audience, is a genius. No matter that Malcolm’s IQ exceeds the combined total of the rest of his family members’ IQs, his bad decisions often put him in the same hilarious predicaments his not-so-bright brothers regularly encounter.

Why smart kids do dumb things
Malcolm’s humor has a real-life basis: Smart kids often make bad decisions. Why? Amygdala. It isn’t a new street drug; it’s a small almond-shaped neuro-structure in the back of the brain. The amygdala is involved in producing and responding to nonverbal signs of anger, avoidance, defensiveness and fear. Basically, the amygdala is associated with emotional reactions to external stimuli. Wow, that greasy pepperoni pizza sure looks good; I think I’ll eat the whole thing.

New scientific discoveries have found that, because the prefrontal cortex—the front part of the brain mature adults use in making rational decisions—doesn’t fully develop until about the mid 20s, teens and many young adults automatically process decisions with their amygdala. As David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatrist and a leader in the effort to include new brain-science findings in capital-crime debates, has said, “adolescents’ brains function in fundamentally different ways than adults’ brains do.”

That fundamental difference is why a teen genius like Malcolm can find himself as the potential entree in the zoo’s tiger exhibit. Malcolm’s brain is full of cool facts; he’d clean up on Jeopardy. But for all his wealth of knowledge, Malcolm isn’t ready to make adult decisions with long-term consequences. (Never mind that Malcolm’s parents’ brains aren’t ready for long-term decisions either, it seems their prefrontal cortexes never did develop.)

Implications of new brain-science findings on teen sex education debates
These new brain study findings likely have liberals’ amygdalas buzzing for rapid reactions. Liberals with developed prefrontal cortexes are, no doubt, seeking a more rational plan to maneuver the findings to confirm their mantra that teens just need more information and freedom to choose whether, where and how to have sex—and what to do if their contraception fails.

But, try as they will, liberals are going to have a devil of a time manipulating the undeniable conclusion of these new brain studies: No matter how much “safe sex” information they’re given, teens are not ready to decide—without clear direction from an adult with a fully functioning prefrontal cortex—whether they should get into bed with the school’s new “hottie.” Teens need clear, unequivocal boundaries; if they hear them repeatedly, they'll remember them when the temptations arise.

A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Sexually Transmitted Infections found, “the lengths of intended delay with future main and casual partners were longer than reported past delays with most recent main and casual partners....”¹ Translation: Left to their own devices, teens with good intentions still tend to make bad choices about sex.

So how much help, then, is a Planned Parenthood “To have or not to have sex” questionnaire² for an amygdala-motivated teen? Questions like “Do both my partner and I feel ready to have sex now?” and “Will I feel good about myself if I have sex now?” sound different to a teen’s amygdala than to an adult’s prefrontal cortex. Mature adults, who can comprehend long-term consequences, need to direct teens toward smart, healthy choices, not give them a boatload of facts and a blank check to behave as their amygdala desires.

As Cornell University concluded in its report on adolescent brain development studies, “If the choices adolescents make have long-term and irreversible consequences for the development of their brains, then discouraging harmful choices and encouraging healthy ones is all the more urgent.”³

Directive and non-directive education
The historic and traditional teaching method for virtually all subjects was based on the premise that some beliefs, behaviors and procedures are right and others are wrong. This teaching model naturally concluded that adults have the responsibility of teaching the next generation right ways to think and behave. All that changed in the 1960s, with the widespread introduction of non-directive teaching methods (sometimes referred to as values clarification, critical thinking or life skills). William Kilpatrick, professor of Education at Boston College and author of Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong, most often refers to this teaching method as “decision making.”

In a 1997 speech Kilpatrick stated the following about the origins of non-directive teaching:

The most important thing to know about the origin of the decision-making approach is to understand that it’s essentially a transplant from the world of therapy. It was an attempt to take ideas and techniques that had proved useful in counseling and to put them to work in the classroom. In the 1940s and 50s Carl Rogers and others had pioneered a method of counseling that was non-directive, non-judgmental, and client-centered…. Rogers is not the best known of psychologists, but I don’t think any other psychologist has had as much influence on our culture and ways of thinking. In the 60s and 70s these counseling techniques, which Rogers had developed, were introduced into schools with the result that teachers began to take a non-directive, non-judgmental attitude toward values. Each person would have to discover his own values, and no one could say that one value was superior to another.⁴

Others may debate the merit of Rogers’ values-neutral, non-judgmental counseling methods for adults with fully formed prefrontal cortexes, but for teaching sex education to adolescents with brains still in the development process the results are in: The experiment has been a tragic failure; just look at the trends:

1950s (before introduction of non-directive sex education)

• Among girls who had their 16th birthday in 1950-1952, 6.6 percent reported being sexually experienced.
• Among girls who had their 16th birthday in 1959-1961, 18.9 percent reported being sexually experienced.
• Syphilis and gonorrhea were the only major STDs (they were called venereal diseases).

1960s (non directive sex education introduced)

• Among girls who had their 16th birthday in 1962-1964, 23.1 percent reported being sexually experienced.
• In 1960, the birthrate for unmarried women was 21.6 per 1,000.
• Syphilis and gonorrhea were the only major STDs (they were called venereal diseases).
• 1964: Sexuality Information and Education Council for the United States (SIECUS) founded. SIECUS lobbies for more (and more explicit) sex education.

1970s (Note: Age of measurement changed)

• In 1970, 32.3 percent of 17-year-old girls reported being sexually experienced.
• In 1975, 36.6 percent of 17-year-old girls reported being sexually experienced.
• In 1970, the birthrate for unmarried women was 26.5 per 1,000.
• In 1970, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 692,870 cases of STDs (1 per 300 Americans).
• 1976: Chlamydia became a prominent STD.

1980s

• In 1980, the birthrate for unmarried women was 29.4 per 1,000.
• 1981: AIDS identified (thought to be a danger only to homosexuals).
• 1984: 3,665 AIDS deaths in the USA
• 1988: SIECUS President Debra Haffner envisions a “petting project” for teenagers (including “caressing, undressing each other, masturbation alone, masturbation in front of a mirror, mutual masturbation”).

1990s

• In 1990, the birthrate for unmarried women was 43.8 per 1,000.
• 1991 Youth Risks Behavior Surveillance found that 54 percent of all teens had engaged in sexual intercourse.
• 1990: 156,658 reported AIDS cases
• 1996: 548,102 AIDS cases diagnosed in the United States (cumulative total).
• In 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 65 million cases of STDs (1 of every four Americans).
• Sometime during this decade Neisseria gonorrhoeae (gonorrhea) developed resistance to penicillin and tetracycline.
• 1998: U.S. gonorrhea rates increased by 9 percent.

2000

• The CDC estimates 3 million new cases of genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection in the United States annually.
• The CDC estimates 5.5 million new cases of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection in the United States annually.
• More than 68 million Americans have an incurable STD.
• The CDC estimates the annual cost of all STDs in the United States at $16.6 billion.

Not funny when it’s your child
The sad irony in the Malcolm in the Middle series is that its humor derives from poking fun at the effects of non-directive teaching (and parenting) on families and society. Malcolm and his brothers get into trouble because they are learning from their parents. Mom and Dad’s values-free lifestyle has turned the boys into goofballs with no moral foundation. Despite his intelligence, adolescent Malcolm continues to get into trouble because his teen brain lacks the component needed for sound decision-making, and no adults are directing him in those decisions. In Malcolm’s case it’s funny. If it’s your child or mine, it’s tragic.

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