While the rest of the body usually stops growing by the time we are about twenty years old, the brain seems to run on a very different time table. New research suggests that the human brain keeps on developing well into middle age.
Science is discovering that in some ways, the brain is much more like a muscle than they every imagined. More specifically, the brain’s structure continues to change over time. These findings suggest that it may be possible to essentially build up the brain throughout much of adulthood.
What they found
Brain volume is commonly believed to stop expanding after age 20. But in MRI brain scans of 70 healthy men between the ages of 19 and 76, researchers found that the brain’s white matter continued to increase until the mid to late 40s.
They found that the brain kept growing in the frontal and temporal lobes. The frontal lobes are involved in motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgment, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior. The temporal lobes have to do with emotional responses, hearing, memory, and speech.
This continued brain growth into middle-age is thought to be associated with better emotional development and wisdom.
What it means in practical terms
Knowing how the brain changes over time is important in understanding brain-related conditions ranging from schizophrenia to drug addiction to Alzheimer’s disease. If the brain keeps maturing in adulthood, that means drug use, poor nutrition or other assaults on the brain could arrest a person’s full development.
On the other hand, continuing to stimulate and challenge the brain throughout adulthood might promote its growth, just as exercise builds muscle.
In the future, the brain imaging used in this study may help monitor age-related changes in people’s brain volume and help signal deterioration before symptoms are apparent allowing time for corrective measures to be taken.
