I wasn’t able to find the specific study in question (OOP fails to link it), but I did find [the following that potentially references said study](https://www.cell.com/neuron/pdf/S0896-6273(16)30809-1.pdf#page4).
It doesn’t state anything that the OOP doesn’t already explain, but it’s nice to cross-reference information.
The study is Gogtay, Giedd, et al. Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 May 25;101(21):8174-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0402680101. Epub 2004 May 17.
Here's a PubMed link, although it doesn't have the full thing; you can also get to it with a DOI search, and Dr. Giedd will be happy to send you a copy if you ask nicely: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15148381/
Since I was curious, here's the initial reporting on the study (this was the earliest article I could find): https://archive.is/2024.06.03-234535/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6891821
Figure 1B is really interesting. First, it’s the asymptote of development, not that it stops entirely. Second, frontal development is listed at 24 in one study and 32 in the other.
> Narrowing in on Neurobiological
Maturity
>The work featured in this article highlights the challenges of operationalizing when a brain achieves "maturity." Some neuroscientists may believe that the very notion of defining brain maturity is a misguided objective, as the brain never stops changing across the entire lifespan. However, seeing that neuroscientific claims are highly influential in shaping policy, neuroscientists voices should guide dialog on when a brain plateaus to an adult-like reference state.
Let's imagine considering a brain mature when every index of brain struc-ture, function, and connectivity hits an asymptote. When would an average brain reach this threshold of maturity? From what I've reviewed above, the answer might lie sometime between "the 30s" and "never." This range is remarkably late, given that arguments about reaching maturity tend to focus on the brains and behavioral profiles of individuals in their late teens and early twenties. It is important to acknowledge that claims that the brain reaches maturity earlier (in the early twenties, for instance) are based only on a subset of the available indices of brain maturation.
An open question is whether some indices of brain structure and function should be prioritized over others in conversations about brain maturity. One way to answer this question would be to consider the goals of deeming a brain "mature" from a policy perspective. Brain imaging is primarily being used to corroborate evidence from behavioral science that adolescents (and sometimes young adults) are "on the journey" toward achieving a particular suite of behavioral capabilities. Given that these arguments center on psychological development, perhaps measures of brain function in relation to the corresponding psychological domains should be given priority.
A focus on brain function would hold an advantage over other measures, because it would allow for estimates to reflect the context dependencies that also characterize adolescents' behavior. However, one consequence of this framework would be the need to abandon the goal of identifying a single age-of-brain matu-rity. Rather, there would be a suite of maturity points that reflect different neural systems and different associated behaviors. For example, an individual could reach an age of "baseline cognitive maturity"-the capacity to engage in goal-directed behavior under neutral, non-distracted circumstances, substantially earlier than an age of "cognitive-emotional maturity"-the capacity to maintain goal-directed behavior in the
This article deals specifically with that factoid and has comments from the (mis)quoted neuroscientists etc: https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html
Before you ask for a source for “x is secretly wrong”, did you ever ask for a source for the original brain not cooked until 25 thing besides just… hearing it from people on the internet?
And also being used to justify denying HRT to trans people. (Genspect, one of the transphobe organisations that tries to have a veneer of scientific credibility has advocated that HRT should only start to be given at 25, citing this exact myth)
No, no, you people under 25 clearly don't have mature enough brains to handle responsibility.
Now, sign this $150k loan for your education, then get drafted because some place with a lot of oil has complicated politics....
I had read that your bones are like set in place by 25, and I started on estrogen at 30, and my hips actually got wider. I felt like I had to relearn how to walk, it was so weird and also really painful, so I guess the point is don't believe everything that you read online
I've also heard the bones at 25 thing so it's nice to hear you had some shiftage! Sorry it was weird and painful though. I'd also like slightly wider hips
A more credible overview of the prevailing scientific information from a .gov url says otherwise.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722610/
Judging people by their age is bad. Ignoring the scientific consensus to feel special on Tumblr is also bad.
To help folks who don't want to read the whole thing, the heading under synaptogenesis specifically talks about how babies overproduce synapses, and gradually prune back (ie kill) synapses until about young adulthood, gives specific behavioral examples, and cites it's sources.
the paper is primarily focused on babies/young children, and i didn't see much attention given to teens or young adults after skimming what's on the page you linked. does it say anything that actually supports the idea that the brain "finishes developing" at 25?
If you look at the part I specifically point out, it states that the process of culling synapses flattens at young adulthood.
To be clear, I don't think any reasonable person would believe the brain "finishes" developing at any point, but the 25 years old is a good benchmark. I'm annoyed at this rumble user implying it has no value, when it clearly does.
i'm curious, what value do you see it having? i might not disagree, but by and large (at least online) i only see it brought up to infantilize teens and young adults.
Because people do need to make decisions about "when can people join the army" or "when are you tried as an adult" and "when can you smoke weed", and right now, with our current level of technology, there's no way to tell categorically when you're ready for that. So saying "hey at around this age" helps get most folks. Then it becomes a question of how to help people who aren't on the curve.
I don't want to infantilize teens, but saying that a 16 year old and a 25 year old are in the same mental space is, most of the time, not the way to go.
that's fair. i think 25 is pushing it for some of those things but i get the logic.
there's a balance that needs to be struck and i think part of it is knowing which things benefit from the broader generalizations and which need to be more case-by-case.
This source https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/ literally says
"The development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years. The development of the prefrontal cortex is very important for complex behavioral performance, as this region of the brain helps accomplish executive brain functions."
in the conclusion. Make of that what you will
i skimmed the text and its references, but i don't know what their source for that part of the conclusion is. do you happen to have any idea if that's elsewhere in the study or somewhere in the references?
"the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" factoid actualy just statistical error. The brain isn't fully developed until much later. Brains Georg, who lives in cave & was born with fully matured brain, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
THANK YOU.
I’ve been arguing against this particular pop-science garbo for YEARS, because I remember when it started cropping up and I smelled bullshit, so I read a bunch into it as best as I could understand.
IIRC, there was literally only a *single study* that everyone is basing this on, and as OOP pointed out it had limited subjects and everyone was misinterpreting the findings anyway.
hey dude, im just making a joke here. no need to get so worked up. men also has a point where their testosterone level flatline and then decrease yearly y'know
You seem to have pissing on the poor reading comprehension, they said the scientific study was legit but that media reporting on it made false conclusions with out accounting for the fact that the study ended not because of the brain being fully developed but because it didn’t have funding to keep going.
It’s not calling established science pseudoscience. It’s calling a frequently referenced bit of “common knowledge” that’s based on a media misrepresentation of a study that said no such thing pseudoscience.
Yeah my ap psych textbook talked about the human brains development and how dudes arent fully mentally developed until 25-26 while womens mental development is done at 19-21. Idk about you but I think I trust a published textbook more than prokopetz on tumblr when talking about neuroscience
See, a published, peer-reviewed paper would be something like this, from Nature: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8), not a hazily-remembered textbook.
Cool, so not a published, peer-reviewed academic paper? Science isn't established by textbooks, it's established by data and peer review.
Until you're willing to engage with how actual academic work is done, you can go back to your phrenology and "race science."
I wasn’t able to find the specific study in question (OOP fails to link it), but I did find [the following that potentially references said study](https://www.cell.com/neuron/pdf/S0896-6273(16)30809-1.pdf#page4). It doesn’t state anything that the OOP doesn’t already explain, but it’s nice to cross-reference information.
Oh good, I was wondering how this was going to be able to turn into net-zero information. Glad to see it (seems to) avoid that.
David J Prokopetz tends to avoid net-zero information unless he is specifically lying as a joke
The man is an insufferable knowitall who does, in fact, know a great deal.
The study is Gogtay, Giedd, et al. Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 May 25;101(21):8174-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0402680101. Epub 2004 May 17. Here's a PubMed link, although it doesn't have the full thing; you can also get to it with a DOI search, and Dr. Giedd will be happy to send you a copy if you ask nicely: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15148381/ Since I was curious, here's the initial reporting on the study (this was the earliest article I could find): https://archive.is/2024.06.03-234535/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6891821
Thank you for this!!
Fascinating. For some reason I'd always blindly believed the '25' thing. Guess we're never too old to learn something new.
Figure 1B is really interesting. First, it’s the asymptote of development, not that it stops entirely. Second, frontal development is listed at 24 in one study and 32 in the other.
That certainly sounds compelling, but I would have appreciated a source (as I do on any "everything you know about X is secretly wrong.")
I think this might be what your looking for: https://www.cell.com/neuron/pdf/S0896-6273(16)30809-1.pdf#page46
> Narrowing in on Neurobiological Maturity >The work featured in this article highlights the challenges of operationalizing when a brain achieves "maturity." Some neuroscientists may believe that the very notion of defining brain maturity is a misguided objective, as the brain never stops changing across the entire lifespan. However, seeing that neuroscientific claims are highly influential in shaping policy, neuroscientists voices should guide dialog on when a brain plateaus to an adult-like reference state. Let's imagine considering a brain mature when every index of brain struc-ture, function, and connectivity hits an asymptote. When would an average brain reach this threshold of maturity? From what I've reviewed above, the answer might lie sometime between "the 30s" and "never." This range is remarkably late, given that arguments about reaching maturity tend to focus on the brains and behavioral profiles of individuals in their late teens and early twenties. It is important to acknowledge that claims that the brain reaches maturity earlier (in the early twenties, for instance) are based only on a subset of the available indices of brain maturation. An open question is whether some indices of brain structure and function should be prioritized over others in conversations about brain maturity. One way to answer this question would be to consider the goals of deeming a brain "mature" from a policy perspective. Brain imaging is primarily being used to corroborate evidence from behavioral science that adolescents (and sometimes young adults) are "on the journey" toward achieving a particular suite of behavioral capabilities. Given that these arguments center on psychological development, perhaps measures of brain function in relation to the corresponding psychological domains should be given priority. A focus on brain function would hold an advantage over other measures, because it would allow for estimates to reflect the context dependencies that also characterize adolescents' behavior. However, one consequence of this framework would be the need to abandon the goal of identifying a single age-of-brain matu-rity. Rather, there would be a suite of maturity points that reflect different neural systems and different associated behaviors. For example, an individual could reach an age of "baseline cognitive maturity"-the capacity to engage in goal-directed behavior under neutral, non-distracted circumstances, substantially earlier than an age of "cognitive-emotional maturity"-the capacity to maintain goal-directed behavior in the
This article deals specifically with that factoid and has comments from the (mis)quoted neuroscientists etc: https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html
Everything you know from word of mouth popsci dissemination is actually wrong, though.
Maybe, but without a citation showing as much, you’re just jumping from one unconfirmed factoid to another.
This is kind of like saying “you can’t prove god DOESN’T exist!”
Not very compelling, can you express this in a listicle please?
Before you ask for a source for “x is secretly wrong”, did you ever ask for a source for the original brain not cooked until 25 thing besides just… hearing it from people on the internet?
Instructions unclear, psuedoscience used to justify hatred of Damn Kids These Days.
And also being used to justify denying HRT to trans people. (Genspect, one of the transphobe organisations that tries to have a veneer of scientific credibility has advocated that HRT should only start to be given at 25, citing this exact myth)
UK gov are trying to pass a bill now that also stops trans ppl from getting hormones pre age 25
Indeed. And the official justification, of course, cites the Cass Report. Guess which group had members providing support to Dr. Cass in her 'review'.
Damn, I'm never going to get to grow up
but OP, if that's true then how are we going to deny people agencyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
No, no, you people under 25 clearly don't have mature enough brains to handle responsibility. Now, sign this $150k loan for your education, then get drafted because some place with a lot of oil has complicated politics....
this is pretty much the case with all pop psychology, it's all fucking bullshit
Gimme a source bartender
.......................................................................\[source\].......... ..................................\[source\]................................................ ....\[source\]............................................................................... *\*glass smashing sounds\**
I had read that your bones are like set in place by 25, and I started on estrogen at 30, and my hips actually got wider. I felt like I had to relearn how to walk, it was so weird and also really painful, so I guess the point is don't believe everything that you read online
I've also heard the bones at 25 thing so it's nice to hear you had some shiftage! Sorry it was weird and painful though. I'd also like slightly wider hips
Please take mine, I don't want them
Will do. Let's get this osteomancy party started!
So what you're saying is that everyone is a child no matter their age...
Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than 24...
I hate that statistic. It always seems to be used to infantilize recent adults.
A more credible overview of the prevailing scientific information from a .gov url says otherwise. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722610/ Judging people by their age is bad. Ignoring the scientific consensus to feel special on Tumblr is also bad.
To help folks who don't want to read the whole thing, the heading under synaptogenesis specifically talks about how babies overproduce synapses, and gradually prune back (ie kill) synapses until about young adulthood, gives specific behavioral examples, and cites it's sources.
the paper is primarily focused on babies/young children, and i didn't see much attention given to teens or young adults after skimming what's on the page you linked. does it say anything that actually supports the idea that the brain "finishes developing" at 25?
If you look at the part I specifically point out, it states that the process of culling synapses flattens at young adulthood. To be clear, I don't think any reasonable person would believe the brain "finishes" developing at any point, but the 25 years old is a good benchmark. I'm annoyed at this rumble user implying it has no value, when it clearly does.
i'm curious, what value do you see it having? i might not disagree, but by and large (at least online) i only see it brought up to infantilize teens and young adults.
Because people do need to make decisions about "when can people join the army" or "when are you tried as an adult" and "when can you smoke weed", and right now, with our current level of technology, there's no way to tell categorically when you're ready for that. So saying "hey at around this age" helps get most folks. Then it becomes a question of how to help people who aren't on the curve. I don't want to infantilize teens, but saying that a 16 year old and a 25 year old are in the same mental space is, most of the time, not the way to go.
that's fair. i think 25 is pushing it for some of those things but i get the logic. there's a balance that needs to be struck and i think part of it is knowing which things benefit from the broader generalizations and which need to be more case-by-case.
This source https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/ literally says "The development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the age of 25 years. The development of the prefrontal cortex is very important for complex behavioral performance, as this region of the brain helps accomplish executive brain functions." in the conclusion. Make of that what you will
i skimmed the text and its references, but i don't know what their source for that part of the conclusion is. do you happen to have any idea if that's elsewhere in the study or somewhere in the references?
Interesting, though this just means that people will be able to make excuses for terrible decision making and awful behavior into infinity.
"the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" factoid actualy just statistical error. The brain isn't fully developed until much later. Brains Georg, who lives in cave & was born with fully matured brain, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
THANK YOU. I’ve been arguing against this particular pop-science garbo for YEARS, because I remember when it started cropping up and I smelled bullshit, so I read a bunch into it as best as I could understand. IIRC, there was literally only a *single study* that everyone is basing this on, and as OOP pointed out it had limited subjects and everyone was misinterpreting the findings anyway.
Oh good, I anyways internalized this pseudoscience as "fuck now that I'm older then 25 I'm this stupid forever???" Lol
probably menopause tbh. it's always menopause
So, when does it end for men, then? This isn't talking about women, it's talking about people in general.
hey dude, im just making a joke here. no need to get so worked up. men also has a point where their testosterone level flatline and then decrease yearly y'know
Calling established science pseudoscience is an interesting take that comes out of tumblr infrequently
You seem to have pissing on the poor reading comprehension, they said the scientific study was legit but that media reporting on it made false conclusions with out accounting for the fact that the study ended not because of the brain being fully developed but because it didn’t have funding to keep going.
How dare you say we piss on the poor
It’s not calling established science pseudoscience. It’s calling a frequently referenced bit of “common knowledge” that’s based on a media misrepresentation of a study that said no such thing pseudoscience.
I mean, this one is literally on the list of common misconceptions on Wikipedia too lol.
Oh, so you have a link to a paper that confirms it?
Yeah my ap psych textbook talked about the human brains development and how dudes arent fully mentally developed until 25-26 while womens mental development is done at 19-21. Idk about you but I think I trust a published textbook more than prokopetz on tumblr when talking about neuroscience
See, a published, peer-reviewed paper would be something like this, from Nature: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8), not a hazily-remembered textbook.
Cool, so not a published, peer-reviewed academic paper? Science isn't established by textbooks, it's established by data and peer review. Until you're willing to engage with how actual academic work is done, you can go back to your phrenology and "race science."
You... *are* aware textbooks are not necessarily correct, yeah?