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While the rest of the body stops growing
long beforehand, the
brain seems to keep on developing into middle age,
new research suggests. The findings could prove important
in the prevention of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The brain is much more like a muscle
than we ever thought. That is, the brain's structure does
change over time and it may be possible to, in essence,
"bulk up" the brain throughout much of adulthood.
Brain volume is commonly believed to
stop expanding after age 20. But in MRI brain scans of 70
healthy men between the ages of 19 and 76, researchers found
that the brain's
white matter continued to increase until the mid- to late-40s.
Specifically, the brain kept growing
in the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe -- the part of
the brain that makes us human. This continued brain growth
into middle-age can be associated with better emotional
development and wisdom.
Knowing how the brain changes over time
is important in understanding brain-related conditions ranging
from schizophrenia to drug addiction to Alzheimer's disease.
If the brain keeps maturing in adulthood, that means drug
use, poor nutrition or other assaults on the brain could
arrest a person's full development.
On the other hand, continuing
to stimulate and challenge the brain throughout adulthood
might promote its growth -- just as
exercise builds muscle.
In the future, the brain imaging used
in this study may help monitor age-related changes in people's
brain volume and help signal deterioration before symptoms
are apparent.
Archives
of General Psychiatry May 2001;58:461-465
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