Mystery Revealed: How Kids Detect the Cooties
Written By Savvy Auntie Staff Writers
By Jaime Herndon
There’s no such thing as “cooties,” right? Maybe there is. A new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience found that a signal in the brain accounts for young children’s avoidance of the opposite sex, and also their interest in the opposite sex as they approach puberty. These responses are located in the amygdala, which is the center for emotions and emotional behavior, along with decision making and other things. It was found that the amygdala is activated whenever something perceived as meaningful enters the environment. There are developmental changes in how gender and gender boundaries are perceived, and in young children, they have an aversion to the opposite sex, or the “cooties” phenomenon, and prefer to hang out with the same sex.
Have you noticed your nieces or nephews detect the cooties?
Published: April 14, 2015
Photo: blu_vanilla21