Nation.Cymru staff
Researchers at Cardiff University are helping to lead a study of 450 young people to understand how changes in the brain affect learning, emotions and mental health during adolescence.
The Brain Exploration in Adolescent Minds (BEAM) study will use a specialist scanner to examine the brain’s microscopic structure, alongside games and assessments completed over several years.
Adolescence brings major changes in behaviour and relationships, but researchers say much remains unknown about the biological processes behind them.
Funded by Wellcome, the project brings together teams at Cardiff University, the University of Cambridge and the Donders Institute in the Netherlands.
It will follow 350 typically developing young people aged eight to 14, alongside 100 young people with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.
By assessing participants repeatedly, the team aims to build a detailed picture of how the brain develops and how those changes relate to young people’s experiences.
Dr Jessica Hall, a researcher on the project, told BBC Breakfast that hormones were only part of the explanation for changes during the teenage years.
“If we think of the teenage brain as a complex highway, new roads are being built to make things more efficient, but it causes a huge amount of disruption for young people,” she said.
Participants will undergo scans at Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, known as CUBRIC, using its Connectom scanner.
According to the university, it is one of only four scanners in the world capable of capturing brain images at this level of detail.
The team will compare the scans with assessments of learning, social development, emotional functioning and mental health.
Dr Hall said: “We’ll ask children to go into the scanner but also to play some games on an iPad, allowing us to see how brain changes might be linked to emotions, mental health and wellbeing.”
The study is co-led by Cardiff professors Derek Jones and Marianne van den Bree, alongside Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore at Cambridge and Professor Rogier Kievit at the Donders Institute.
Families interested in taking part with children aged eight to 14 can find more information on the BEAM study website.
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