Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2010 Jun;31(6):926-33. doi: 10.1002/hbm.21052.
Adolescence refers to the period of physical and psychological development between childhood and adulthood. The beginning of adolescence is loosely anchored to the onset of puberty, which brings dramatic alterations in hormone levels and a number of consequent physical changes. Puberty onset is also associated with profound changes in drives, motivations, psychology, and social life; these changes continue throughout adolescence. There is an increasing number of neuroimaging studies looking at the development of the brain, both structurally and functionally, during adolescence. Almost all of these studies have defined development by chronological age, which shows a strong-but not unitary-correlation with pubertal stage. Very few neuroimaging studies have associated brain development with pubertal stage, and yet there is tentative evidence to suggest that puberty might play an important role in some aspects of brain and cognitive development. In this paper we describe this research, and we suggest that, in the future, developmental neuroimaging studies of adolescence should consider the role of puberty.
青春期是指儿童期到成年期之间的身体和心理发展阶段。青春期的开始与青春期的开始松散地联系在一起,青春期带来了激素水平的剧烈变化和许多随之而来的身体变化。青春期的开始也与驱动力、动机、心理和社会生活的深刻变化有关;这些变化在整个青春期都在继续。越来越多的神经影像学研究着眼于青春期大脑在结构和功能上的发展。几乎所有这些研究都通过与青春期阶段相关的生理年龄来定义发展,这与青春期阶段有着很强但不是单一的相关性。很少有神经影像学研究将大脑发育与青春期阶段联系起来,但有初步证据表明,青春期可能在大脑和认知发育的某些方面发挥重要作用。在本文中,我们描述了这项研究,并提出,未来对青春期的发展性神经影像学研究应该考虑青春期的作用。