Brain changes significantly after age 18, says Dartmouth research
This is a significant study, but not for the reasons that many think. We don’t have a lot of research that has compared normal brain scans across a specific age spectrum. Nobody has ever thought that a person’s brain stopped development at age 18 (that’s an arbitrary legal cutoff, not one set because of our knowledge about child development, which has been far more recent). This study shows continuing changes throughout early adulthood in the mid-20’s, which is exactly as we would expect.
For the study, Baird and graduate student Craig Bennett looked at the brains of nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college. A control group of 17 older students, ranging in age from 25 to 35, were also studied for comparison.
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. “When do we reach adulthood? It might be much later than we traditionally think.”
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 7 Feb 2006
