Wonder how long until someone uses this as an excuse for why teenagers shouldn't be put in high-stakes academic situations?
Government researchers found in a recent study that the last areas of the brain to mature in humans appear to be those responsible for reasoning, problem-solving and other sophisticated functions. This doesn't happen until sometime between ages 18 and 21...
The new images [generated by the study] are important because "no one had actually shown that . . . simple areas would develop first and mature first, and complex areas would have to wait until simple areas mature," said lead study author Dr. Nitin Gogtay, a psychiatrist with the National Institute of Mental Health.
I have to admit, this does explain the lightbulb-going-off-above-the-head effect that hits most ex-party-animals in their mid-twenties, when they wonder how they could have been so insane as to do lots of drugs and unprotected sex when they were younger.
For some, though, that lightbulb never really appears, does it?
Posted by kswygert at June 15, 2004 04:52 PM