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It Is Those Raging Hormones After All!

Researchers find link to teen behaviors

A hormone that the body produces under stress calms children and adults but actually produces more anxiety in teenagers. The effect is also more likely to occur in teenage girls. This new finding may shed some light on why teens react more emotionally to stress than those in other age groups.

Researchers at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center experimented with mice of different ages. When they exposed the mice to stressful events, the animals secreted a hormone called allopregnanolone, which worked as a tranquilizer in young and adult mice. However, in pubertal mice, the hormone seemed to make them more, not less, excitable.

Similar changes in hormonal activity happen in humans, Sheryl Smith, a professor of physiology and lead researcher, believes. "Puberty is a time when a lot of emotions and responses to stress are increased."

The study appears in the March 12 issue of Nature Neuroscience.

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