Quick Write:
 Well I believe that Ms.Becker sees so much potential in me we've also spoOne of the brain regions that changes most dramatically during adolescencee before and i think she actually believes in me, believes in my idea's, my effort and believes that I need more confidence in my work that i should give myself that extra push to believe in myself as well.

1.)How does Ms. Blakemore define adolescence?
-Starts at puberty

2.)How long does it last?
- Ends in the early 30's

3.)What is the significance of the prefrontal cortex?
-One of the brain regions that changes most dramatically during adolescence.

4.)Which section is this on the diagram we viewed yesterday?
-Executive Processes

5.)What is synaptic pruning and what is the significance of the process?
-Synaptic pruning is the elimination of unwanted synapses. You prune away the weaker branches so that the remaining, important branches, can grow stronger, and this process, which effectively fine-tunes brain tissue according to the species-specific environment, is happening in prefrontal cortex and in other brain regions during the period of human adolescence.

6.)What is the social brain?
-How good we are at reading other people's behavior, their actions, their gestures, their facial expressions, in terms of their underlying emotions and mental states.

7.)Explain the design and results of the experiment in which adolescents were compared to adults in seeing things from another person's perspective.
-adolescents and adults use a different mental approach, a different cognitive strategy, to make social decisions, and one way of looking at that is to do behavioral studies whereby we bring people into the lab and we give them some kind of behavioral task, the adolescents did pretty well with the first task but when they were asked to put the same task into the others person perspective adults were able to do it much better the adolescents.

8.)Describe the difference between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex in teenagers and adults.
-The limbic system is right deep inside the brain, and it's involved in things like emotion processing and reward processing. It gives you the rewarding feeling out of doing fun things, including taking risks. It gives you the kick out of taking risks, The prefrontal cortex is the front part of your brain witch thinks before taking risks.
 
9.)Do you see your own adolescence as a problem or an opportunity?Explain.
- I Don't see my own adolescence as a problem, i often try to understand people's reasoning as to just arguing or debating about something im very understanding.

10.)Make one suggestion you have for educators based on this Ted Talk.
-The environment, including teaching, can and does shape the developing adolescent brain.

Quick Write:

I Do not agree that teenagers should have the same rights as adults because teenagers do have some growing up to do teenagers can be as mature as adults but it wouldnt be as wise to give teenagers the same rights as adults. 

What makes teenagers different from adults and babies? 

  -As babies we are very curious we often grow into teens that take risk and try things out prepare ourselves to becoming adults who have mostly experience it all.  

How is decision-making connected to the various parts of the brain?

  -We often take risk as teens and even adults before taking a risk we think about if we should do it or not something in our brains tell us whether we should do it or not.

How should society differentiate between teenagers and adults from a legal, social, and individual perspective?

  - I believe that from a legal standpoint teenagers should be treated as adults we are old enough to know right from wrong i dont believe that if a teenagers commits a murder they shouldnt be treated any different from an adult, as for social most teenagers are engaged in sex and crazy television , etc we shouldnt be treated any different after all we are becoming adults and are still humans so whether we do it now or later it'll still happen, as far as individual perspective i believe that teenagers should have the same respect as adults in order to grow up and actually become an mature adult we should have some type of respect as an teenager.   

 How do we evaluate our own brain development at this point in our lives?

 - As we grow we learn more about our selves, our brains, the way we think and how we grow 

Teen Brain Basics

The teenage brain is complex , scientist are looking at the brain to see how and why they make the decisions they make. Teenagers choices are all about exploring and pushing limits , there comes a time when you go out and explore the world on your own , test things out a bit , every spices have an necessary stage before adult hood. Researchers uses the (MRI) to test the theory  that teenage brains are different from the adult brain. There are two processes going on in your brain one process involves the fibers that connects nerves cells , the other process is the strengthening of the synapses the docks between the nerve cells. Babies have an abundance of connections, but during the teenage years, many of these connections are pruned (eliminated) to make the brain processes more efficient. This is why its easier for young people to learn languages , but it also explians why sometimes its hard for them to make logical decisions.

LOST:

  I wouldn't say I'm a "Risk Taker" how ever I have taken risk in the pass. When I was younger my mom never allowed me to leave the front of the building. It was a summer day and all of my friends were going bike riding in "dead man hill" my mom wasn't around so I figured I'd take my chances and tag along besides I've always wanted to go bike riding in "Dead Man's Hill" that's where all the cool kids went. So we road our bikes up towards the hill and everyone took turns riding down.The hill was so steep and narrow so I was kind of afraid but it was my turn to go and I didn't want to chicken out so I road down the hill and everything was fine until I came across the biggest bump in the road and tumbled all the way down face first. My whole face was destroyed almost unrecognizable there was blood everywhere. Ambulance had came and called my mother. I was more afraid of how she was to react if she knew I went bike riding without permission then the gigantic scar that was left on my face she came and burst into tears when she seen me after it all I've learned a valuable lesson and that was to always listen to my mom because she knows best.

Gray Matters

The Mokens are a seafaring people who spend a great deal of their time in boats off the coast of Myanmar and Thailand. They live off the sea and get their food from diving deep underwater where there is little light. They have developed unusual underwater vision--twice as good as Europeans. This has enabled Mokens to gather shellfish at great depths without the aid of scuba gear. Without masks or scuba gear, they trained their brains and eyes to gather tiny shellfish and other food on the ocean floor at depths as low as 75 feet (23 meters). According to an online article in National Geographic News, deep water makes it difficult for the human eye to see. "But the Moken are able to accommodate, or muscularly change the shape of the eye's lens, in order to increase light refraction," the article says."It seems they have learned to control their accommodative response, such that they can voluntarily accommodate even in the blurry underwater environment." 

    

Dr. Dennis Charney, has studied how the brain responds to dramatic changes in peoples' environments. He believes that the brain can order the body to adapt to suite its needs in any environment. In the Moken's case, they have obviously trained their brains to adapt their vision to accommodate the underwater darkness.  

Do Now:

 I actually don't believe the credibility of this blog I never heard of octopus being out of water.

Here's One Of The Sources That I'm Using:

"Down Syndrome." Genetics Home Reference. Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. <http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/down-syndrome>.

Under Contruction

Click Here To See Graphic Organizer

Here's my question for further research:
How can teens control their impulses ?

Final Reflection:
Just this year, I made a major decision without any outside influences. Growing up in my environment and with the friends that I've surrounded myself with, I always got distracted in school. Everywhere around me, there always was someone who gave up and let society take over their ambition. I've, however, decided to stay in school to achieve my high school diploma. No matter how many times I have felt like giving up or going down that road, I am here today and I am a strong-minded person for being around bad and not choosing to be that, for being pressured and not giving in, for being strong enough to not give up, and for being women enough to keep trying.

How does down syndrome occurs ?

I find this topic pretty important because I've always wondered how can someone just be born with Down syndrome. I'm sure that there's people out there that wonder the same things . I think this topic might be of interest to others because I believe everyone knows someone with Down syndrome . I'm researching this topic today because I personally know people with Down syndrome and I would like to be more aware of the causes of Down syndrome.