Turns out that we’ve all got a little Taylor Swift in us. Our brains host their own Eras Tour — just without the elaborate costume changes.
New research suggests that our brains experience major changes that result in five broad eras over the average human lifespan.
And just like the Eras Tour, you can mark your calendar for when these “turning points” happen at four particular ages.
Neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK found that the human brain rewires itself to support different ways of thinking as we grow and mature.
We enter these “major epochs” of brain structure around 9, 32, 66 and 83 years old.
What’s more, our brains aren’t fully considered adult-ed until our early 30s.
“This study is the first to identify major phases of brain wiring across a human lifespan,” Alexa Mousley, a Gates Cambridge Scholar who led the research, said in a statement.
The research, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, examined brain scans of more than 3,800 people up to 90 years old.
These scans track how water molecules move through brain tissue, allowing neural connections to be mapped.
The imagery revealed five specific brain structure phases.
The first phase, or the childhood “topology,” goes from birth until age 9. The adolescent phase typically lasts from 9 to 32.
Once we hit our early 30s, the brain’s wiring shifts into adult mode, going into the longest era, which spans more than three decades.
As we reach our 66th birthday, we pass another turning point and head into the “early aging” era.
And at the ripe age of 83 years old, the average brain reaches the “late aging” phase.
“These eras provide important context for what our brains might be best at, or more vulnerable to, at different stages of our lives,” Mousley said.
“It could help us understand why some brains develop differently at key points in life, whether it be learning difficulties in childhood or dementia in our later years.”
The study reinforced that when we’re infants, less active synapses are eliminated to make the remaining connections stronger and more efficient. Synapses are structures in our brains that allow neurons to pass signals to each other.
The brain scans found that synapses are constantly restructuring, with each era defined by the connections across different regions of the brain.
In childhood, we experience rapid growth and development of grey and white matter — brain tissue that’s important for processing information and communication, respectively.
At 9, there’s increased cognitive capacity and a greater risk of mental health disorders.
In our adolescence era, between the ages of 9 and 32, communication is refined and there’s enhanced cognitive performance, thanks to more white matter.
But once you hit the true adult phase (at least in the neurological sense), the brain begins to stabilize and growth levels off. In fact, other studies say there’s a “plateau in intelligence and personality” throughout the longest brain era.
Once we hit our mid-60s, aging causes white matter to degenerate. There’s also a higher risk of health conditions that can affect the brain, like high blood pressure.
While the data from the study for the final turning point at age 83 was limited, researchers still found that brain connectivity further declines.
“Understanding that the brain’s structural journey is not a question of steady progression, but rather one of a few major turning points, will help us identify when and how its wiring is vulnerable to disruption,” said senior study author Duncan Astle, a professor of neuroinformatics at Cambridge.
