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It may seem to parents that teenagers pick a fight over the tiniest details or problems - and they're probably right.

But scientists have found that teenagers' brains shut down in the face of maternal criticism, meaning young adults really do react in a disproportionately emotional manner.

Brain scans revealed that in the face of a nagging mother, areas of the teenage brain associated with negative emotions went into overdrive, while there was reduced activity in regions needed for emotional control.

Scientists have found that teenagers' brains shut down in the face of maternal criticism, and young adults really do react in a disproportionately emotional manner (illustrated with a screenshot showing Haley, played by Sarah Hyland, arguing with her mother Claire, Julie Bowen, in the TV show Modern Family)

Neuroscientists from the Universities of Pittsburgh, California-Berkeley and Harvard scanned the brains of 32 teenagers, with an average age of 14, as they listened to two 30-second clips of their mothers criticising them,Wired reported. 

The researchers, led by Kyung Hwa Lee, discovered that the teenagers' brains showed more activity than average in areas of the brain involved with processing negative emotions, such as the limbic system. 

More surprising was the finding that there was less activity in regions of the brain tasked with controlling emotions and understanding other people's perspectives, such as the prefrontal cortex. 

The study found that the teenagers' brains showed more activity than average in areas of the brain involved with processing negative emotions, such as the limbic system (shown in yellow) and less activity n regions of the brain tasked with controlling emotions such as the prefrontal cortex (green)

They wrote in the study that teenagers' brains 'shut down social processing' so they don't consider the effect their outburst might have on their parents' feelings.

'The decrement in brain activity in regions involved in perspective taking could help to explain the high frequency of conflict resolution in parent-adolescent [pairs],' they added.

Or in other words, why teenagers clash with their parents so easily. 

The study suggests that conflict between teenagers and their parents is normal, and is not really the teens' fault.

'The results suggest that youth may respond to maternal criticism with increased emotional reactivity but decreased cognitive control and social cognitive processing,' the study said.

The researchers believe that: 'a better understanding of children's responses to parental criticism may provide insights into the ways that parental feedback can be modified to be more helpful to behaviour and development in youth,' so fights could be avoided in many cases.