Summary: While volume indeed decreases from childhood to young adulthood, gray matter density actually increases, a new study concludes. Thus, while adolescents lose brain volume, and females have lower brain volume than males, this is compensated for by increased density of gray matter.

Synaptic pruning is thought to help the brain transition from childhood, when it is able to learn and make new connections easily, to adulthood, when it is a bit more settled in its structure, but can focus on a single problem for longer and carry out more complex thought processes.

A possible explanation for increased growth of gray matter in early puberty is that from birth until then the gray matter is constantly being weeded out so that the person can more efficiently learn how to use their basic functions such as talking, and walking, as well as other basic human functions.

Not surprisingly, brain function tends to worsen in old people. But there is no natural death of this tissue in teens. Scientists know that brain cells trim off their non-essential parts during adolescence. This is a normal part of the learning process.

25 years

The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so. In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. Teens process information with the amygdala.

The Prefrontal Cortex Gets Lit Though your fast cognitive reflexes may be slowly eroding, at 25, your risk management and long-term planning abilities finally kick into high gear.

Once we reach adulthood at around 25 our brain stops naturally forming new neural pathways and our habits, biases and attitudes become more set in stone and much harder to change. Nevertheless, it isn’t impossible to train our brains to changing later in life and throughout adulthood.

There are parallel pathways, some of which serve conscious proprioception, and others that serve subconscious proprioception. Conscious proprioception is relayed mostly by the dorsal column and in part by the spinocervical tract. Finally, the organ of perception for position sense is the sensory cortex of the brain.

frontal lobe

The Frontal Lobe Or rather, the effect that size and structure have on the development of ADHD. One major area where structural anomalies seem to play a role in ADHD is in the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that controls executive functions.

ADHD: Large imaging study confirms differences in several brain regions. The largest imaging study of its kind finds that people diagnosed with ADHD have altered brains. It identifies size differences in several brain regions and the brain overall, with the greatest differences seen in children rather than adults.

ADHD brains have low levels of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is linked arm-in-arm with dopamine. Dopamine is the thing that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure center. The ADHD brain has impaired activity in four functional regions of the brain.