You look yourself in the mirror and notice you are taller than you were a few weeks ago. Fuller and bigger breasts, hair in places you have never had before, the onset of periods, acne – you just wonder what I am turning into? Well, welcome to puberty girls!
Puberty is that time of your life when the hormones which were hibernating all this while suddenly wake up and scream out aloud you are transforming from a child into an adult, all on the pretext of reproduction. Puberty does not spare boys as both girls and boys go through the cycle of puberty. It is just that girls reach puberty pedestal earlier than their much imbecilic counterparts (read boys).
Attention girls: Puberty knocking
Having said about the physical transformation that puberty brings in girls, lets plunge into the changes it brings in their learning ability. A recent study on female mice by the department of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, suggests that the commencement of puberty reduces the flexibility in some forms of learning.
During research, when mice were exposed to puberty hormones they discovered noteworthy changes in neural communication in the frontal cortex of their brain – which is responsible for attention, learning, memory, awareness, thoughts etc.
Furthermore, when the higher-order learning capabilities of pre-pubertal and post-pubertal mice were tested by various methods, as expected the post-pubertal mice had a tougher time in learning the new strategies as compared to their pre-pubertal partners.
More than being just an interesting finding, the result of the above said study has serious implications on the learning ability of young girls, as many of them reach the first stage of puberty at the tender age of 7 or 8.
Despite puberty skewing a girl’s cognitive ability inversely – they still excel at studies
This early onset of puberty in recent times is linked to many reasons like obesity, lack of physical activity, stress, and genetically modified food items, etc. It is because children are usually considered to have better flexibility than adults; it enables them to learn basic academic pursuits more easily compared to adults.
Puberty affects the very same brain flexibility in young girls as their cognitive focus shifts from basic learning skills to social learning and peer relations among others – which could result in serious educational and emotional problems.
To conclude the aforementioned study, it has been successful in demonstrating that puberty plays a crucial role in frontal cortex maturation and not just age. In order to know that if the same results apply on the male brain as well, further research on males will have to be conducted.
Source: American Pregnancy, WEF,
Global Annal 