Brain keeps growing in middle age (http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/573281.asp)
May 14 ¡X A key aspect of brain development continues until nearly age 50, scientists said on Monday in a finding that contradicts the current view that such maturation ends before 20 and may shed light on brain ailments such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.
THE RESEARCHERS, led by Dr. George Bartzokis of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, used magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain development in 70 normal men aged 19-76. So-called white matter ¡X which sends signals from one part of the brain to another ¡X continues to develop in the frontal and temporal lobes on average until 48, the study found. The researchers confirmed that so-called gray matter ¡X the cerebral cortex ¡X achieves peak development at the end of adolescence, then declines until old age.
¡§If your brain is the Internet, gray matter is your computer and the white matter is the telephone lines that connect your computer to all the other computers on the planet,¡¨ Bartzokis, associate chief of staff for mental health at the VA¡¦s Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System, said.
¡§Most people think of the brain stopping development either in childhood or by the time we are adults,¡¨ Bartzokis said.
But he noted that people are very different at 40 than at 17. ¡§You¡¦re really not the same person. And the issue is ¡X are you not the same person because you just had an awful lot of experiences or are you not the same person because your computer (brain) is very different? And this study suggests that your computer is very different.¡¨ The study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry.