Brain still changing at age 18,
Dartmouth Researchers … have learned that anatomically significant changes in brain structure continue after age 18. Abigail Baird, Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and co-author of the study, explains that … the study closely tracked a group of freshman students throughout their first year of college.
The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.
"The brain of an 18-year-old college freshman is still far from resembling the brain of someone in their mid-twenties," says Bennett.
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Psychologists have long known that the brain continues to develop into legal adulthood. Improvements in technology let these researcher follow the development of individual brains. The individuals in this case had just moved from home to college. They were learning to adjust to a new life context. The brain development may have been fostered by this experience. Or it might have been simple maturation that would be observed in most people of that age. Or it might be a combination of these.
Fortunately, the technology will be used in the future to settle this and other issues. What we can do with this information right now is to understand that children and adolescents do not have fully developed brains and cannot muster the same capabilities that are available to adults.
Ok. Some adults don’t muster those capabilities, either. Having a fully developed brain module does not ensure that you use it when you need it. But that is just a matter of practice. Meaning, of course, that adult brains can keep developing as long as the person keeps developing new capabilities. There may be no clear point at which maturation is complete for the brain. At least not until senility sets in or the person dies.
The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.
"The brain of an 18-year-old college freshman is still far from resembling the brain of someone in their mid-twenties," says Bennett.
-----------
Psychologists have long known that the brain continues to develop into legal adulthood. Improvements in technology let these researcher follow the development of individual brains. The individuals in this case had just moved from home to college. They were learning to adjust to a new life context. The brain development may have been fostered by this experience. Or it might have been simple maturation that would be observed in most people of that age. Or it might be a combination of these.
Fortunately, the technology will be used in the future to settle this and other issues. What we can do with this information right now is to understand that children and adolescents do not have fully developed brains and cannot muster the same capabilities that are available to adults.
Ok. Some adults don’t muster those capabilities, either. Having a fully developed brain module does not ensure that you use it when you need it. But that is just a matter of practice. Meaning, of course, that adult brains can keep developing as long as the person keeps developing new capabilities. There may be no clear point at which maturation is complete for the brain. At least not until senility sets in or the person dies.
posted by Selby Evans at 9:45 AM
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