These lecture notes are based on the subject The Adolescent Brain from the year 2015-2016 With adolescence we refer to the period after childhood and before adulthood, approximately between the ages of 8 to 25. Puberty is considered to be the start of adolescence, so the bodily changes that come along with the hormonal changes which we refer to as puberty can be seen as the starting point of adolescence. It’s more difficult to determine where adolescence ends, because it’s much more culturally determined, so there are many cultural variations in that. Neurons are brain cells, and from the neuron there are axons that extend from the cell body. The axons are nerve fibers that conducts electrical impulses. There are also dendrites, which are branched projections of neurons that receive electrical impulses. There’s a distinction between grey matter and white matter. The gray matter consists of neuronal cell bodies and can be mainly found on the surface of the cerebral cortex and cerebellum and in subcortical structures, for example the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, thalamus, hypothalamus, putamen, etc. The white matter consists of bundles of myelinated nerve cells (axons) connecting gray matter areas of the brain. The white matter carries nerve impulses.In general we can distinguish between four main lobes of the brain: the frontal, parietal...