THE ESSENTIAL
- A study has identified 5 “major eras” of brain structuring over the course of life.
- These big changes take place at ages 9, 32, 66 and 83.
- This study helps to better understand the structural progress of the brain and shows that it is indeed not linear.
The human brain goes through 5 major stages of development during life.These distinctive changes support our learning, our abilities and also our vulnerabilities as we age.
This finding, highlighted by neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge, is detailed in the journal Nature Interaction.
The brain is a teenager up to 32 years old!
By comparing MRI scans of the brains of 3,802 people aged between 0 and 90, researchers identified four “tipping points” crucial in brain structuring which occur around 9 years, 32 years, 66 years and 83 years. The brain thus experiences 5 major periods during its life.
First there is the childhood of the brain which extends from birth to nine years. This period is marked by a “network consolidation”during which the very large number of synapses in the baby’s brain at birth are reduced. Only the most active remain. “Simultaneously occurring, gray matter and white matter rapidly increase in volume, so that cortical thickness – the distance between outer gray matter and inner white matter – reaches a maximum, and cortical wrinkling, the characteristic ridges on the surface of the brain, stabilizes.” add the authors in their press release.
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