HAVING SEX DURING ADOLESCENT YEARS COULD HAVE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES ON THE MOOD AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT DURING ADULTHOOD
There is time for everything: A time to love and a time to grieve.
A new study conducted by the researchers at Ohio State University College of Medicines has claimed that having sex during adolescent years could have far-reaching consequences on the mood and brain development during adulthood. They have reasoned that during adolescence the nervous system is still in the developing phase which can have broad consequences.
The research study conducted on hamsters found that the animals that mated earlier in life had higher levels of depressive behaviours, changes in the brain and smaller reproductive tissues compared to those that had intercourse later in life or not at all. According to the co-author of the study, John Morris, sexual experience at an early age, during adolescence or in early period of life, is not without consequence. The study was carried our on three groups of hamsters. The first group comprised of 40-day old male hamsters (the equivalent of human teens); who were allowed to mate with adult females in heat. The second group comprised of 80-day old adult males who mated in adulthood, while the control group was not exposed to any females.
The results revealed that the first group of animals who mated in adolescence did not swim vigorously when placed in water, rather stopped swimming – a condition understood to be a symptom of depression. It was concluded that the group allowed to mate in adolescence further showed less complexity in the brain’s dendrites – the branching extensions of neurons that receive messages from other nerve cells, and also showed a higher expression of the a gene associated with inflammation.
However, the researchers have cautioned against using the study from propagating teenage abstinence or believing that a similar study on human beings will also yield similar concluding results
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