And we always thought that, 'Oh they are so resilient.' Well, they are and they aren’t. You know, there are certain things that can affect them life-long. The same amount of experience like stress or alcohol or pot, an adult may sail through it - for the same exposure - but a teenager will bear a long-term problem based on that.”
Dr. Jensen says drugs and alcoholic drinks can have much more serious effects on the teen brain than on an adult brain. She says drugs and alcohol can especially affect a teenager’s Intelligence Quotient, or IQ.
“Your IQ can change up or down between 13 and 17 (years old). We don’t yet quite know what specifically can make an IQ go up or down, but one thing that we know does make IQs go down is certainly exposure to certain drugs, for instance chronic pot smoking; the more you smoke the lower your IQ is going to go during that time window."
Another myth Dr. Jensen put to test is how teenagers are able to recover from a bad experience – what we call being resilient. At times, she says, the teenage brain is resilient. But in other ways it is not. Things like stress and drug and alcohol use can give teens long-term problems.