from "Inside the Teenage Brain" by Judith Newman, From November 28, 2010, Parade

"At birth, our brains have an operating system loaded and primed for growth. In a baby, each neuron (a cell that transmits electric signals) has around 2500 synapses; that increases over the next three years or so to around 15,000. These synapses are the wiring that allows our brains to send and receive information. Until recently, scientists thought this huge surge in brain wiring happened only once, when kids are young. Wrong. A study of 145 kids and adolescents scanned every two years at the NIH has shown that there's another huge surge right before adolescence, followed by a process of 'pruning' those connections in a kind of use-it-or-lose-it strategy. In other words, says Jess Shatkin, assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry and pediatrics at the NYU Child Study Center..., 'If you're a chess player or an athlete, the areas of the brain responsible for those skills will continue to develop -- while other skills will fade away.' The skills you practice as a child and pre-teen become much sharper in the teenage years; and those practiced reluctantly, if at all, will diminish on your brain's hard-disk drive. 'The brain is very efficient, allowing you to become more adept at the life skills you're going to use -- which is why these are the years to set good work habits in place,' notes Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute and author of Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs. Adds Shatkin, 'This synaptic pruning in a sense makes you become the person you'll ultimately be.' "

Talent Show Dance: Jake Midura, Raquel Pratte, and Molly Hayden