Imagine being a 31-year-old teenager.
A new University of Cambridge study suggests that your brain can be in an adolescent state even as the body is in its early 30s.
Neuroscientists studied MRI brain scans from more than 3,800 people, ranging in age from newborns to 90-year-olds. The scans tracked water’s movement through tissue, allowing researchers to map the networks that link different parts of the brain.
They found that the brain’s structure goes through five major phases and four turning points when the brain reorganizes itself.
Each period holds a different way for the brain to support thinking, learning and behavior.
The first phase is childhood, and it lasts from birth to roughly age 9. During this epoch, the brain’s network consolidates. Gray and white matter grow quickly. Ridges on the brain’s outer surface take shape.
In the adolescent phase, around age 9, white matter grows and brain scans show orderly water movement in tissue, suggesting stronger neural connections. The brain hits peak efficiency. This phase, to our surprise, lasts until the age of 32, on average.
Then, the brain hits its adult phase, which lasts three decades. Things are stable, but there is growing segregation, with brain regions becoming more distinct and specialized. Around age 66, the brain hits a subtle phase. There is no drama, but again, the brain network reorganizes. White matter begins to degenerate.
The final turning point happens near age 83. The brain’s global connections falter and it relies more on specific regions.
The takeaway, researchers say, is that the brain’s life journey is not a steady climb, but one of predictable changes.
You might say it’s just a phase.
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