ICYMI: Brain May Rewire Through 5 Distinct Eras Across Lifespan, Researchers Suggest

This image, taken using MRI diffusion scans, is an individual brain whose structure represents the second of five brain eras defined in a new study.

Alexa Mousley/University of Cambridgeo

The brain may experience five distinct stages of connectivity across a human lifespan, according to a study published Nov. 25 in Nature Communications. An international team of researchers used MRI to scan the brains of around 4,000 people ranging in age from infancy through 90 years old. They identified four ages — roughly nine, 32, 66, and 83 — which generally mark a transition into different eras of neural wiring as we age.

 

Although the researchers describe plenty of variation across individuals, these images depict five individual brains who represent the five separate eras of structural change described in the new study.

Alexa Mousley/University of Cambridgeo

Each of these stages are associated with shifts in cognition, behavior, and structural changes in the brain itself. Childhood development plays out through the age of nine, after which the brain enters an adolescent era stretching through the early 30s. This period is our most efficient, and it’s defined by maximum connectivity across regions. From then up until the mid-60s, brain changes slow and stabilize, and people experience a “plateau” in personality and intelligence, according to the study. Connectivity begins to decrease beyond the age of 66, and it declines even further in the 80s and beyond.

Big Picture: These findings aren’t definitive. More research is necessary to back them up or determine other details affecting how the brain changes across a life span. But it offers clues as to how major aging milestones may correspond with our neuroanatomy, and how these shifts could approximately map on to lived experiences.

Read More: Brain has five ‘eras,’ scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s. The Guardian

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About the Author

Bella Isaacs-Thomas

Bella is the Staff Writer and Editor for BrainFacts. She previously worked as a digital science reporter at PBS NewsHour, where she was named a fellow in the 2022-2023 class of the National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowships (SHERF) and earned a 2021 D.C. Science Writers Association Newsbrief Award for writing. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in 2018.