The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine Read Free Book Online Page A

my mom."
    The sleep clock in a boy's brain begins changing when he's eleven or twelve years old . Testosterone receptors reset his brain's clock cells--in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN--so that he stays up later at night and sleeps later in the morning. By the time a boy is fourteen, his new sleep set point is pushed an hour later than that of girls his age. This chronobiological shift is just the beginning of being out of sync with the opposite sex. From now until his female peers go through menopause, he'll go to sleep and wake up later than they do.
    Nowadays, most teen boys report getting only five or six hours of sleep on school nights, while their brains require at least ten . Some parents have to unplug the Internet if they want their sons to get any sleep at all. If school systems and teachers really wanted teenagers to learn, they'd make start times later by several hours. At least that would increase the chances of a boy's eyes being open--even if it wouldn't wipe the look of boredom from his face.
Like many parents, I used to think teen boys were acting bored because it was no longer cool to be excited about anything . But scientists have discovered that the pleasure center in the teen boy brain is nearly numb compared with this area in adults and children . The reward center in Jake's brain had become less easily activated and wasn't sensitive enough to feel normal levels of stimulation . He wasn't acting bored. He was bored, and he couldn't help it. When Erin McClure and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health scanned teenagers' brains while they looked at shocking pictures of grotesque and mutilated bodies, their brains didn't activate as much as children's or adults '. As many high-school teachers know, the teen boy brain needs to be more intensely scared or shocked to become activated even the tiniest bit. The amount of stimulation it takes to make an adult cringe will barely get a rise out of a teen boy. If you want to startle them enough to make them scream or jump, you'll have to magnify the experience with sounds, lights, action, and gore. Now I know why my son liked the bloodiest special effects and shoot-'em-up movies when he was a teen. This preference may not change as boys reach manhood, as blockbuster moviemakers well know. But grown men don't need the same raw rush as they did when they were thrill-seeking teens.
    Jake's mom blamed his glazed-over eyes, irritability, and short fuse on lack of sleep, and that definitely had something to do with it. But what she didn't know was that a lot of Jake's anger was being triggered by the new way his male brain was experiencing the world and everyone in it.

SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH MALE-COLORED GLASSES
    If a woman could see the world through "male-colored glasses," she'd be astonished by how different her outlook would be . When a boy enters puberty and his body and voice change, his facial expressions also change, and so does the way he perceives other people's facial expressions . Blame it on his hormones. A key purpose of a hormone is to prime new behaviors by modifying our brain's perceptions . It's testosterone and vasopressin that alter a teen boy's sense of reality . In a similar fashion, estrogen and oxytocin change the way teen girls perceive reality . The girls' hormonally driven changes in perception prime their brains for emotional connections and relationships, while the boys' hormones prime them for aggressive and territorial behaviors . As he reaches manhood, these behaviors will aid him in defending and aggressively protecting his loved ones. But first, he will need to learn how to control these innate impulses.
    Over the past year, for no good reason, Jake began to feel much more irritable and angry. He would quickly jump to the conclusion that people he encountered were being hostile toward him. We might ask, Why did it seem the whole world suddenly turned on him? Unbeknownst to Jake, vasopressin was hormonally driving