Brain maturation continues for longer than previously thought - well up until age 30. That's according to two papers just out, which may be comforting for those lamenting the fact that they're nearing the big Three Oh.
This challenges the widespread view that maturation is essentially complete by the end of adolescence, in the early to mid 20s.
Petanjek et al show that the number of dendritic spines in the prefrontal cortex increases during childhood and then rapidly falls during puberty - which probably represents a kind of "pruning" process. That's nothing new, but they also found that the pruning doesn't stop when you hit 20. It continues, albeit gradually, up to 30 and beyond.
This study looked at post-mortem brain samples taken from people who died at various different ages. Lebel and Beaulieu used diffusion MRI to examine healthy living brains. They scanned 103 people and everyone got at ...
