Scientists reveal when kids turn into adults and it's taking people by surprise
'Our early thirties see the brain's neural wiring shift into adult mode,' said Fred Lewsey.
People in their 20s often freak out when they are nearing 25, since we have long believed that this was when the brain's prefrontal cortex fully develops. But did you know that it was a false assumption, and people don't fully become adults until their 30s? On November 28, a new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge found out when a person truly reaches a certain level of maturity, and no one saw it coming. To find the actual age, researchers scanned the brains of around 4,000 people between the ages of zero and 90, per Vogue.
According to the new study published in Nature Communications, the brain evolves through five stages throughout our lives, which are also considered important "turning points." “While puberty offers a clear start, the end of adolescence is much harder to pin down scientifically. Based purely on neural architecture, we found that adolescent-like changes in brain structure end around the early thirties,” mentioned Dr Alexa Mousley, a Gates Cambridge Scholar who led the research. As per the study, the brain goes through the "childhood phase" that runs from birth till the age of 9. This transitions into the adolescent phase, which lasts up to age 32. "Our early thirties see the brain's neural wiring shift into adult mode," said Fred Lewsey at the University of Cambridge. Lewsey noted that this stage, which lasts up to the age of 66, is the "longest era." "A third turning point around age 66 marks the start of an 'early ageing' phase of brain architecture. Finally, the 'late ageing' brain takes shape at around 83 years old," Lewsey noted.
This study is considered pathbreaking in recognizing the five major phases of brain wiring across the human lifespan. Dr. Alexa Mousley, a Gates Cambridge Scholar, added, "These eras provide important context for what our brains might be best at, or more vulnerable to, at different stages of our lives. It could help us understand why some brains develop differently at key points in life, whether it be learning difficulties in childhood, or dementia in our later years."
While the brain wires into becoming an adult at 32, one must not assume that it correlates to one's intelligence. The study highlights that your brain's structure settles down around this time and won't change much for another 30 years. This points to what researchers term “plateau in intelligence and personality.” A 2013 report by the Association for Psychological Science noted that the prefrontal cortex and other connected brain networks do change throughout adolescence and early adulthood, but these changes do not translate into a clear measure of behavioural or emotional maturity. The report highlights that individual differences, life experiences, and environmental factors strongly influence behaviour, which makes it scientifically unreliable to use brain scans alone to determine a person's personality or level of maturity.
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