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Each week in May, Meg Jay, clinical psychologist, assistant clinical professor at the University of Virginia, and author of The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now, looks at different aspects of life in your twenties.

This Week: how your brain changes throughout your 20s- and how that affects your choices.

Everyone had a favorite teacher growing up, but did you ever wonder how that person got you excited about learning? According to new neurological research, it might be because that teacher unknowingly tapped into your brain. John Gabrieli, neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks about these and other new results from neuroscience that are shaping the way educators teach.

Americans have long debated whether the U.S. should have an official state language. The issue has been back in the spotlight in recent days since Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum said, "There are other states with more than one language, like Hawaii, but to be a state of the United States, English must be the principal language." However, recent studies show that switching between languages may actually make you smarter. 

Iain McGilchrist, a former consultant psychiatrist, looks at why the brain is divided into two hemispheres. In his book, The Master and His Emissary, he draws on case histories and other brain research to show how different the right and left sides of our brains are, what each side helps us do, and why the left hemisphere is taking more precedence in the modern world.

According to new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, daily doses of a drug commonly used to treat Parkinson's disease has shown to improve function in people with brain injuries. The large-scale study showed that the drug, amantadine, can make a measurable difference for patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries. Doctors have experimented with drugs like amantadine to treat such patients, but this is the first time a study proved its effectiveness.

John Branch, New York Times sports reporter and author of the three-part series “Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer,” about Derek Boogaard, a professional hockey player; Alan Schwarz, New York Times education reporter and formerly a sports reporter whose coverage of concussions in sports was nominated for a Pulitzer prize; and Dr. Robert Cantu, neurosurgeon and co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine, discussing the link between contact sports, concussions, and degenerative brain conditions.

In October, neuroscientists Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang were on Please Explain to discuss how a young children’s brains develop. And this week they return to discuss the brains of adolescents and teenagers—from sleep problems, gender differences, behavior issues, learning disabilities, and hormones. They investigate myths about brain development and sort through the factors that matter—and those that don’t—in brain development from childhood to college. They’re the co-authors of Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College.

How well do you know your child's brain? Take this quiz!

Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga argues against the common belief that physical laws govern our behavior and that there’s no such thing as free will. In Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain shows how determinism weakens human responsibility, and he shows that the latest insights into the mind reveal that we are responsible for our actions, not our brains.

Andres Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian man who killed 77 people and injured 151 others in July, was declared insane by state psychiatrists in Oslo on Tuesday. After planting a car bomb near government buildings in Oslo that killed eight people on July 22, Breivik drove to a political youth camp on Utoeya island and gunned down 69 people, many of whom were teens. In an online manifesto that was found later, Breivik claimed to be defending Europe from an Islamic invasion enabled by Norway's Labour Party and the European Union. Alexander Levi, a lawyer in Oslo, discusses the likelihood of Breivik facing a prison sentence after being declared insane.

Neuroscientists Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang discuss how a child’s brain develops, from conception to college, looking at language learning, sleep problems, gender differences, and behavior issues. They debunk myths and look at the factors that matter—and those that don’t—in children’s brain development. They’re the co-authors of Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College.

How well do you know your child's brain? Take this quiz to find out!

Pleasure works in mysterious ways, and Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale University, looks at what we desire and why. In How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like Bloom investigates pleasures of all kinds—noble and seamy, lofty and mundane.

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot looks at the human brain’s tendency toward optimism. Psychologists have long been aware that most people maintain an often irrationally positive outlook on life. In fact, optimism may be crucial to our existence. The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain looks at experiments, research, and findings in cognitive science that help explain the biological basis of optimism. Sharot examines how the brain generates hope and what happens when it fails.

Father's Day is coming up on Sunday. We've talked a lot about dads this week, about the best fictional fathers and about single dads who are raising their kids on their own. Today we'll hear about an inspirational father, a man who encouraged not only his son, but many of us across the nation. Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy decided not to seek reelection last year. He has focused his life after politics on a new organization called One Mind for Research, a brain research organization inspired by his father, the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

Renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain and looks at how it affects our conscious brain and behavior. In Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, he explores damage, plane spotting, dating, drugs, beauty, infidelity, synesthesia, criminal law, artificial intelligence, and visual illusions to reveal the mind and all its complexity.

Diane Ackerman talks about her husband, Paul West’s, stroke and long recovery. He was afflicted with aphasia—loss of language—and Diane, frustrated with traditional therapies, relied on her scientific understanding of language and the brain to guide Paul back to the world of words. Her book One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing is an account of stroke, aphasia, and recovery, as well a love story.

The fantasy of outsmarting our enemies and even the ones we love most in this world is a natural dream. We all love to be right, to have the upper hand. The movie “Limitless” tests the boundaries of that fantasy by imagining the consequences of a world where we can access the deepest boundaries of our brains with the helpful pop of a pill.

Physician and researcher Dr. V. S. Ramachandran draws on strange case studies to offer insight into the evolution of the uniquely human brain. In The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human, he reveals what these cases teach us about how language developed, what the origins of art are, what causes autism, and how we develop self-awareness.

In the wake of the Arizona shooting, many have been amazed by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ survival, despite a gunshot wound, in which a bullet passed straight through her brain. Doctors say Rep. Giffords (D—Ariz.) is still in critical condition. But neurosurgeons see such wounds more often than we like to think. Dr. Ross Bullock, Universtiy of Miami's chief of neurotrauma at Jackson Memorial Hospital, explains how advancements in technology are making brain trauma patients more likely than ever before to survive — and maybe even have the chance to live a normal life after recovery.

Can’t get enough of Chopin or Brahms? New research suggests the music you love doesn’t just sound good, it can actually provoke natural chemical reactions in the brain associated with pleasure and positive feeling.

In our world where BlackBerries, cell phones, laptop computers and other digital devices rarely provide an escape from constant communication, it's often more difficult to disconnect than stay connected. But, as Matt Richtel writes in today's New York Times, one group of five neuroscientists successfully separated themselves from technology to enter the wilderness and study how the heavy and consistent use of digital devices affect the brain.