How teenagers learn to fall in love: Brain cells develop during puberty that help them flirt and find a partner

It is a time of emotional angst and young love, but new research suggests  the brain could have its own way of coping with puberty.

Scientists found that the brain might develop new cells during puberty to help it navigate the social world of adulthood.

The researchers at Michigan State University found that the brains of mammals develop new cells in the amygdala during the teenage years.

The brain develops new cells in the amydgala - a part of the brain key to processing emotions - during puberty to help it navigate the social world of adulthood and to find a partner

The amygdala is an almond-shape set of neurones in the brain which play a key role in the processing of emotions.

The amygdala plays an important role in helping brains make sense of social cues and the researchers believe that the new cells help people with flirting and finding a partner.

‘These regions are important for social behaviours, particularly mating behaviour,’ said lead author Maggie Mohr, a doctoral student in neuroscience. ‘So, we thought maybe cells that are added to those parts of the brain during puberty could be important for adult reproductive function.’

To test this idea, the researchers injected male hamsters with a chemical marker to show cell birth during puberty.

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When the hamsters matured into adults, the researchers allowed them to interact and mate with females.

Examining the brains immediately after that meeting, the researchers found new cells born during puberty had been added to the amygdala and associated regions.

Some of the new cells contained a protein that indicates cell activation, which told the researchers those cells had become part of the neural networks involved in social and sexual behaviour.

‘Before this study it was unclear if cells born during puberty even survived into adulthood,’ Ms Mohr said. ‘We’ve shown that they can mature to become part of the brain circuitry that underlies adult behaviour.’

It was previously believed that people were born with all of the brain cells they would ever have except in the parts of the brain that control smell and memory

Their results also showed that more of the new brain cells survived and became functional in males raised in an enriched environment – a larger cage with a running wheel, nesting materials and other features – than in those with a plain cage.

While people act in more complicated ways than rodents, the researchers said they hope their work ultimately sheds light on human behaviour.

‘We don’t know if cells are added to the human amygdala during puberty,’ Professor Sisk, study co-author, said, ‘but we know the amygdala plays a similar role in people as in hamsters. We hope to learn whether similar mechanisms are at play as people’s brains undergo the metamorphosis that occurs during puberty.’

Scientists had previously believed that people were born with all the brain cells they will ever have in every part of the brain, except those associated with smell and memory.