Inventing Ourselves

The brain creates every feeling, emotion, and desire we experience, and stores every one of our memories. And yet, until very recently, scientists believed our brains were fully developed from childhood on. Now, thanks to imaging technology that enables us to look inside the living human brain at all ages, we know that this isn't so. Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, one of the world's leading researchers into adolescent neurology, explains precisely what is going on in the complex and fascinating brains of teenagers—namely that the brain goes on developing and changing right through adolescence—with profound implications for the adults these young people will become.

Drawing from cutting-edge research, including her own, Blakemore shows: