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When Does Maturity Set In?
An anonymous reader writes "Two Dartmouth researchers claim that they are one step closer to discovering at what age human maturity sets in. From the article: 'For the study, Baird and graduate student Craig Bennett looked at the brains of nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college. A control group of 17 older students, ranging in age from 25 to 35, were also studied for comparison. The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.'"
For ordinary people or those of us on Slashdot?
Blank until
You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
God knows my colleagues agree!
I'm never going to grow up! First post!!!!!
Is Slashdot ganking from Science Daily now, too?
When moving away from home you encounter a hell of a lot of new experiences and theres so much to learn and take in.
For instance, embedding the location of the pub and distance to the nearest kebab shop are key.
Students who cannot manage this feat rarely last a week, you see them cold hungry and sober in lectures wishing they were back at home.
Of course your brain matures when you leave home though, you do have to adapt, because you just couldn't survive if you let your mummy do everything.
liqbase
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And I would just like to say POOP! *giggle*
From TA:
.... significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals"
"During the first year of college
- yeah, because it's the first year of college - they're all busy pickling their brains with newly found alcohol and drugs.
duh.
Worthless research.
What constitutes maturity is not exactly well defined; these fellows just seem to have chosen a bunch of criteria (ability to navigate the world my ass) and proceeded on such basis.
The problem here isn't when people mature, that part's easy enough given an accepted definition of maturity. The problem is reaching that definition.
Do they allow people to do research now without the prerequisite of being able to distinguish between subjectivity and objectivity?
This research is like if I stated that the volume of an alarm clock is a good determinant of how likely one is to be a successful employee. There's just so much wrong with the premises it isn't even worth the few minutes to read.
Bad science has a home on slashdot, I see.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I have also read, but I can't remember where and it's to friggin early for me to take the time to look it up, that drugs and alchol (certain amounts like a lot) can affect the brains development as an organ keeping it in the state of a younger brain.
This could be, and I think the study even said so, one of the reasons drunks and drug addicts act so immature if they have been doing it for a long time or started when they were kids.
I wonder if the study took enviormental factors such as this into account in the study.
Evolution or ID?
Here is a link to and science program in Australia called Catalyst. I actually managed to watch this episode and this reminded me of it and I was bored enough to google for a link.
t m
What it says is that the brain doesnt mature fully until the age of 25.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1424747.h
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
I wonder what the effect of beer is on maturity and these areas of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition?
I know after 12 pints I often lose the ability to speak, start dribbling, and crawl around on the floor like a 2 year old ...
"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death."
(read with tongue in cheeck)
so ehm... they take a bunch of older students as the control group. is that a smart idea? i'd take a bunch of people already working for a while, who have been confronted with Real Life (tm) and have developed into Maturity
I wonder if someone who doesn't move out before a certain age won't have certain brain development, just as someone who hasn't learnt to talk will never talk after a certain age.
;)
In other words, do the experiences of moving out change you or does the brain change naturally?
Also are the effects of alchol and drugs on brain development also taken into account, seeing as these are college freshmen
Never gonna grow up
Once you stop drinking like a fish, you start to mature. People who keep hardcore drinking after their college-era stay at ~18 years old in their maturity.
Sound waves should be free!
Had I known sooner, I would have taken up smoking pot a long time ago.
There has to be a statistical reason why your car insurance is so absurdly high when you're a late teen, with a steady decrease before a significant reduction at the age of 35. Certainly your appetite for risk behind the wheel doesn't completely reflect your all round maturity in life, but I'd suggest a strong correlation.
Aegilops
That's not to say, of course, that 25 year olds are not often more mature than 18 year olds. At the same time, the mere physical age of ones brain is not the only factor to take into consideration when evaluating someones maturity. Environmental factors, for example, make up a big part of any one persons maturity level, or personality in general.
But what am I saying? We all know that every single 18 year old, without exception, is an immature, boozing, sex-addict. :P
a) going to college changes your brain
b) being 18 and full of hormones changes your brain
c) both to varying extents
-- "You never mentioned comets before, Mac. This opens up a whole new area of negotiation." - Gordon Urquart
Or as they say, "Too soon old, too late smart".
One of the best reasons for life extension.
Additionally, they only studied the brains of other college students. What about the brain of the person who skipped college because the pace is too slow and the culture is counter-productive? What about the brains of the people who are making more money (annually) at age 16 than most college graduates make before their 40th birthday?
I conclude that the brains of the people described above are much different than that of a regular college student's brain. Now, can I have a grant, too?
College is for having fun and acting the eejit and generally screwing around. When you leave college/university then the reality of finding a job and having to support yourself and get on with the sobering thought of getting a career sets in, then you start to mature.
PHP121 Instant Messenger - Web Based Instant Messenger
It's 25 not 35 when car insurance dramatically decreases.
We all know that every single 18 year old, without exception, is an immature, boozing, sex-addict.
I've encountered more immature 18 year olds who are straight-edge sexaphobics than boozing sexaholics. There is a whole segment of our society devoted to making sure children are shielded from any sort of adult social behavior until at least after they graduate college. Are they safe until they finish college? I suppose. Are they prey after that? You betcha.
paintball
Even with all the disclaimers, they had two supportable contentions:
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Maturity is not something you get....it's something you develop during your whole life. There's no age for being mature...and i think there will never be. There's an age when you become responsable for your actions (18, 16 depends on the country) but you can still be a very inmature person at that age. Like they say in my country...the devil knows more coz he's old than coz he's the devil....
It's never too late to stop doing something wrong, or to start doing something right.
.....Our current President went to one of the finest institutes of higher "edumacation" on the planet. They couldn't help him.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I've seen 20 year olds to drive carelessly, doing various wheelies and other tricks on the road, while at the same time many 40 year olds drive very carefully, respecting road signs etc.
Then again I have seen those 20 year olds voting for those politicians that really care about the environment and the world's state, while those 40 year olds voted for their 'connection' that promised them a better job, a bigger loan, more money, etc.
So who is mature after all?
How do you define or measure maturaty for a study? Is it when you stop laughing when someone farts or says penis? Penis.
Can I bum a sig?
Brains....
Brains....
How else would someone GIVE them brains, except to "study"
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I myself expierienced this after moving on to third level education. I can't exactly describe why now, but at the time, about six months after starting university, I was keenly aware that my mind had "changed" somehow. I was viewing the world very differently. I put this down as a consequence of moving from an enviornment where permission had to be given in order to urinate, to a place where no one really cared whether I turned up for class or not.
This occurred again after I moved out of the barent's basement, but in a subtly different way. Suddenly I began to view the opposite sex in a whole new way.
May the Maths Be with you!
In some ways I was very mature early on. In other ways I was a "late bloomer". Guess in which.
when impotence sets in.
I don't think I felt 'grown up' until I hit 42. Living a peaceful existence with low physical and emotional stress compared to hunter gatherers, farmers, soldiers etc may have something to do with it.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
It tends to coincide with marriage which also pushes the price down. It's 25, by the way, as another poster pointed out.
If you vote Republican before you are 20, you have no heart. If you vote Democrat after you are 20, you have no brain.
All you are noting is that many people, somewhere along the line, realize that idealism doesn't actually work.
...but for most Slashdot readers, I have to think "any day now."
I'm a Toys R' Us kid.
A million toys to choose from, that I can play with.
From bikes to trikes and video games, its the biggest toy store there is. GEE WIZ! I don't wanna grow up, cuz baby if I did....I wouldn't be a Toys R' Us kid!
*Sorry, couldn't help myself. Whenever someone tells me to grow up that song kicks in*
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's ALL in the brain chemistry.
Chemical dependency studies point out that use of drugs and alcohol impede the maturation process. That shows us that brain chemistry is important. Look at the reproductive cycle for more on brain chemistry. Look at how stupid many young males act to "get the girl." Look at how stupid many young females act to "get the guy". The answer? It varies. And it will vary for some all the way into their late 20's.
My auto insurance premium had a significant decrease at 35. Of course my health insurance premiums increased, but there are always tradeoffs.
Maturity is really a process, not a destination. I know some pretty rash, immature seniors (i.e. 60+) and some very level-headed tweens (i.e., 20-30). After they figure out when maturity sets in, I believe we should find out how green is green and how far is up. Then we'll be getting somewhere.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Or a little after, maybe.
The entire point of the study is meaningless. It's like asking "how much does it cost to buy a house?" Well, some houses are $100,000, some are $1,000,000, some are $10,000,000... Asking "at what age does maturity set in" is the same.
We don't ask "how light does your skin have to be for you to be a genius", since everyone recognizes that prejudging intelligence by skin color is wrong. Why do we persist in asking "how many years old do you have to be for you to be treated as a mature human being"?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
After 12 pints I am invisible - and Superman !
It is good to see a lot of thoughtful comments here regarding the paper.
If you have any questions for me specifically then please reply to this post and I will try to answer as directly as I can.
Best,
~Craig
Oooh. Isn't that a 30" Cinema Display featured in the picture of the two researchers?
I'm glad someone finally mentioned men and women. That seems to be the most important part of this study -- about emotional and cognitional areas of the brain changing. It seems to me that the average (or median) 16-year-old male is more emotionally mature than the average (or median) 30-year-old female because they can better set aside emotion and think rationally.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Isn't that right, Mr. Poopy Pants? NEENER! NEENER! NEENER! Your theory sucks!!! Loooooooser.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
As was explained to me a long time ago...
At about the age of 12 or 13, the Puberty Fairy comes along one night and takes away your brain. Sometime later, as soon as 18, she might come back and give you a grown-up version of your brain. It seems to happen a little earlier for girls. Sometimes she completely forgets to return your brain (hence, "I may have to grow older, but I don't have to grow up.")
From my own personal experiences, I think it's strictly environment.
:(
I base this on the fact that I've met many people well-into middle-age (mostly in the US and Europe) with all the emotional maturity of the typical toddler. I've also met Third World kids, many of whom were 'older' than I ever want to be.
Regards;
Still waiting at 39 years, 10 mos, 2 days.
No sooner do I get over one, then you put a better one right next to me. Bastards.
Enlisted servicemen can drink at 18 when on base. Some pubs will look the other way for them, as well. Depends on the bar, though.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I went to univeristy right after high school and bombed out. Went into the army, the Canadian Army for years after that. Since, during that time, I was never seriously in dannger of losing life or limb, no real maturing happended there (there was a lot of drinking/bar hopping though).
About 8 years later I realized the army wasn't a career. Was I becoming more mature? Nope, the money sucked.
After ditching the army I went back to school and got a CS degree (made dean's list too one year). Mature? nope. well, perhaps. Was able to concentrate although I didn't take it that seriously.
Graduated at the start of the boom, made lots of money, bought fast cars, got married. Did marriage make me 'mature'? nope.
I even bought a house and started a business and made even more money. When I had 9 employees the responsability of having these people depend on me and the business for thier livelyhoods did make me pause a few times. No big deal, the business is going gangbusters no need to truely accept the responsibility. The status quo of immaturity continued thoughout the bust. I even had a couple of kids.
Then the business tanked. Not suddenly but I could have handled it better if I had truely accepted the responsibility from the get go. Now I matured *fast*. took some wrangling (and most of my life savings) but all the *people* got thier due and the bogey man bills got paid.
That left me out of work with little prospect for employment in my town. Little savings left, a big mortgage, and 5 mouths to feed. I was 38 feeling like a 55 year old.
It took a year but I finally got a job paying less than half of what I was making before.
I am a fully mature adult now, scraping to get by. Every cent we spend is carefully accounted for. No money for gadgets, movies, dinners out, vacations. We buy our duds at a used clothing store.
I liked it better when I was immature.
the problem is not the 20 year old voting for the "right" candidate, the problem is all of the 20 year olds who didn't bother to vote because they were too busy playing gta: san andreas. the 40 year old may vote for the "wrong" candidate, but the point is, they VOTE. and that, in the end, is more important than anything else
if a slight shade more 20 year olds had voted in 2000, for example, how would history be different?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They need a better control group. How about some 25 year olds that are going to college for the first time? (Brain better keep growning) Or a group of 18yr olds that are still in High School? (smoking dope and brain does not change) The control group has little relationship to the test group. Maybe add some of the campus terrors(65 yr old single class retired curve busters) to the group. See how the old brains change.
When those damn kids won't get off your lawn!!!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
You know, I've read a few of the posts and I am relatively amused. Most of the people who have stated a knowledge of their own immaturity would be shocked to hear that this realization is a mark thereof.
It's the ones who think they've got it all figured out who are usually the most immature.
One thing that maturity has taught me is what a completely immature person I was when I was younger and thought I was mature. Seems like an ongoing process.
Your tax money at work.
I spent all this time getting to the societally accepted mature age of 18, please don't raise the bar on me now!
This sig is false.
My family in the USAF were allowed to drink on base, and weren't THAT close to the Mexican border - Lackland for basic training IIRC, and various bases across the south as he trained on aircraft mechanics.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
...and I'm still waiting.
Still trying to think of a clever sig...
A 22 year old with a handle on debt will be more mature than a 34 year old that is a renter in suburbia that is adamant that you can't make money in real estate.
Making money in suburban real estate (my frame of reference is the Dallas/FtWorth metroplex) does not require maturity, rather it requires you to have no problems being crooked, ruthless, greedy, willing to cheat, steal and to lie your ass off with impunity, and have no scruples about doing any of those things to anyone, even the most downtrodden happless victims. And smile every minute of the time while you're doing it. If you're capable of such, you'll do well financially in the suburban real estate market. If you have even the tiniest trace of a real conscious or heart, you'll get squashed like a bug in an instant.
You may have been subjected to some liberal brainwashing techniques. Quickly, while there is still time! Don an extra thick tin-foil hat, yes tin good aluminum bad, and watch many many hours of Fox News. Rig up an electric shock device or get a good old cattle prod. Everytime you think Hillary Clinton would make a good president, shock the living hell out of yourself.
I am glad I didn't go to a Liberal Arts College. Those places are the schools of the Devil!
Funny, my ass. You should be modded +10 Insightful.
How do they know if they're measuring maturity or if they are seeing how the brain changes when a person has to adapt to significant new living conditions. Rather than just looking at 18 year old college students why not also look at:
14-15 year olds who have been sent off to boarding school.
Children of divorced parents who now move between two households and have to deal with step-families.
Children who have lost their parents and who are now being raised by relatives.
Saying that the brain changes when someone is put into a new situation where they are being forced to become more self-reliant is one thing, but labeling it "maturity" is a bit of a stretch. I know a fair number of pretty immature adults.
Hey, here's an idea - don't give someone the rights of an adult until their brain has gone through these changes! "No, I'm sorry, sir, the brain scan still indicates you are not ready to drink or vote. Shall we make an appointment for another scan next year?"
DD
"Can I finish? Can I finish?
This is not new information about brain development. About 15 years ago, I attended a lecture about gifted students who under performed. The lecturer commented that often for males the ability to perform executive tasks did not fully develop until age 25. Executive skills are defined as being able to take a large task and break it in to smaller tasks that are manageable in order to accomplish the task. In contrast the ability to play a simple video game that requires rapid hand-eye coordination was fully developed by age 6.
Most students I knew who lived on campus were less mature, not more. I had to commute an hour from my parents' house, work two to three jobs, and I'd say that I was much more mature than them. It's not that all kids who lived on college didn't have to work, of course. It's just that most worried more about parties or just their classes. I knew kids that were fairly competent in high school that became drug addled losers in college. I really question the methodology of this study. And it's insulting.
You can see the same thing in the children of alcoholics and the like. Forced to become the responsible adults in the family, they often have to give up on their childhood in the process. Major psychological pitfalls often lie ahead for them.
Personally, I feel every child should have the opportunity to be a child, without major care or responsibility. It's not always been the historical precedent (adolescence, and especially the teenage period are relatively recent inventions within the last century or two), but I think it's been established as something necessary in today's society. Not to say that you shouldn't instill a sense of maturity and responsibility within your kids, but it's more along the lines of keeping their rooms clean and budgeting their allowance, not having to keep up the house finances and ensure that mummy and daddy get tucked into bed after they drink themselves into an alcoholic stupor.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Another breathtaking discovery from those brilliant, brilliant (and chubby) scientists.
I know that was just meant to be funny, but perhaps we should all get depressed instead over the news that once you pass 25 you can go to college and your brain won't change.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
In addition to the previous groups studied, this study to show any merit should have looked at the brains of nineteen 18-year-old who did not go to college and did not have a change in environment (geographically) and see what development takes place.
When does maturity set in? Never! Just take a look at a politician - theres your proof.
Victory shall be mine!
The US CDC categorizes teenagers as anyone between the ages of 13 to 25. Through their statistics, they have found that the perception of risk for HIV and various other sexually transmitted diseases is only marginally higher in someone who is 21 as compared to someone who is 15, or even younger.
That being said, I'm 22.
This poses an interesting question, I think, as I have been aware of this particular shortcoming of the human developmental cycle for some time. Growing up (and to this day) I have had a very strong interest in psychology and sociology, and because of that I have been making a conscious effort to make up for that which has not developed yet in my mind. The question is, by training myself to contemplate my actions and correlate outside circumstances with my own vulnerability to the point in which they are now instinctual, have I forced these sections of the brain to develop willfully? Or have I simply emulated it to the point in which it's like some sort of Pavlonian conditioning? Have I shortcut my own development, or will I find myself more able to perform these tasks in another few years?
Looking back introspectively, I can say that I am much more mature now than I was even as little as three years ago. At 18 I was faced with finding a job and supporting myself indefinitely and while this was something that I was able to choke down, it was nothing that I was happy about. I managed to get myself decently employed and to remain in school at the same time, something I found immensely stressful at the time and it pushed the limits of my sanity pretty hard. Now days I cope with these things more easily. I am able to manage my money more effectively, not to mention my time and other resources. I find that I'm able to do much more in a day than I ever thought was possible, and I am more capable of dealing with situations that would have previously caused a panic, now cause a thirty minute budgeting session. Will I look back in another three years and recount to everyone how I was quite a fool? Will I be able to stand the company of my peers at 25? Because as it stands I find it hard getting along with people under the age of 30, let alone 25. I suppose the best thing to do is wait and see.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
Given my university status, here is the full article text:
Research Article
Anatomical changes in the emerging adult brain: A voxel-based morphometry study
Craig M. Bennett 1 *, Abigail A. Baird 1 2
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Moore Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
2Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moore Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
email: Craig M. Bennett (craig.bennett@dartmouth.edu)
*Correspondence to Craig M. Bennett, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Moore Hall, Hanover, NH 03755
Funded by:
NICHD; Grant Number: R03 HD45742-01A1
Keywords
magnetic resonance imaging voxel-based morphometry human development
Abstract
Abstract INTRODUCTION SUBJECTS AND METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION Acknowledgements References
Research has consistently confirmed changes occur in brain morphometry between adolescence and adulthood. The purpose of the present study was to explore anatomical change during a specific environmental transition. High-resolution T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were acquired from 19 participants (mean age at initial scan = 18.6 years) during their freshman year. Scans were completed during the fall term and 6 months later before the conclusion of the school year. Voxel-based morphometry was used to assess within-subject change. Significant intensity increases were observed along the right midcingulate, inferior anterior cingulate gyrus, right caudate head, right posterior insula, and bilateral claustrum. Regional changes were not observed in two control groups; one controlling for method and another controlling for age-specific change over time. The results suggest that significant age-related changes in brain structure continue after the age of 18 and may represent dynamic changes related to new environmental challenges. Findings from the regions of change are discussed in the context of specific environmental demands during a period of normative maturation. Hum Brain Mapp, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Received: 2 March 2005; Accepted: 13 September 2005
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1002/hbm.20218 About DOI
Article Text
INTRODUCTION
Abstract INTRODUCTION SUBJECTS AND METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION Acknowledgements References
The transition from adolescence to adulthood is known to be a time of tremendous change. Between the ages of 18 and 25, most young adults move away from their parents or guardians and become self supported for the first time [Cohen et al., [2003]]. Marked shifts in the romantic relationships, risk-taking behavior, insight, and worldviews of young adults have been well documented during this time [Arnett, [2000]]. Such research has demonstrated convincingly that a person continues to mature behaviorally between the ages of 18 and 25; however, changes in brain structure accompanying this period of development have remained unclear. A thorough understanding of the structural and functional changes occurring in the brain during young adulthood is critical to advancing our knowledge of the neural basis of cognitive, social, and emotional development.
Postmortem studies were the first to reveal that development in the central nervous system begins during gestation and continues well into the third decade of life [Benes et al., [1994]; Brody et al., [1987]; Hunter et al., [1997]; Yakovlev and Lecours, [1967]]. These findings have been supported by work using positron emission tomography (PET), which can provide regional measures of baseline glucose metabolism. Using this method, cortical metabolic activity across the brain has been shown to reach stable, adult-like, levels in the mid-twenties [Van Bogaert et al., [1998]]. More recently, studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have confirmed that brain maturation continues throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. Specifically, white matter volume increases lin
This article is just another little study most likely commissioned by someone who wanted to set an age restriction on something.
Read the sig.
...what they're seeing aren't the last stages of "maturity", but rather the earlier signs of old age?
Drawing sweeping conclusions from only two groups and making all these blanket assumptions makes for a completely worthless study.
What a crock of crap.
Maturity doesn't "set in".
It's forced on you by circumstance.
Send a child to war and he'll grow up instantly.
Send a poor little rich kid to the White House and, well...
When a child (or a young adult) is allowed to take responsibility for his or her condition in life.
In ancient Rome, it was not uncommon for 14 year olds to marry and hold public office.
I would say that most people mature into more stable and "mature" people between 25 and 30. Not that younger people can't make mature decisions, it's just that the consistency starts to set in. Women tend to mature a bit earlier while men hold on to the "crazy" years a bit longer.
Why do you think there's "SpikeTV?"
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
In the West, over 80% of deaths occur to mature people. They also are responsible for dampening 75% of unrealized fun. Rather than learning how to live with this debilitating syndrome, can't we work on eradicating it?
tone
tone
I think this is a worthwhile study, and I'm interested in reading the ACTUAL paper written by these scientists and not just the PR push from the Dartmouth marketing department. Ignore the buzz words and try to see the science...
Why not look at the structural changes in the brain and attempt to assert a position on brain behavior and development that can be substantiated by actual data instead of "When I was 12 my parents, and my dog, died in a tragic back-hoe accident... and ever since then I've been mature." I think this study is asserting a very interesting position based on a significant amount of research done on their control group. Having hundreds of participants in your control group might have proved MORE interesting, but it is not necessary.
The point, that I think they're trying to demonstrate with this study, is that the human brain continues to develop after the age of 18. If there is a corollary between brain development and "maturity" e.g. becoming an "adult" then they've certainly demonstrated that if "maturity" is based on brain development your not fully matured until much later than we initially believed.
This study is VERY interesting as it relates to Juvenile culpability and responsibility. If our brain continues to develop after the age of 18 how culpable are we for crimes committed before the age of 18 or 25? Consider the implications of being able to determine when we are not simply "emotionally adult" but functionally adult, when our brains and bodies are no longer changing in such a way that we should be held MORE responsible for our actions.
Disregarding this study simply because many of us were uber-geeks as teens and were intellectually if not emotionally more developed than our class-room counterparts does not negate the need, or the relevance, of this study. Our cognitive development may be based on a combination of intangible elements such as emotional growth and nurture, but the fact remains that the human body is a machine which can and should be studied to determine it's functional limitations and possibilities. Understanding the human animal, especially in relation to development, is an important area of study.
Anyway, who wants to take bets on whether or not that grad student is reading the Slashdot forums as we speak. Hi, Craig!
"We're gonna need a bigger boat." - Jaws
is it bad that i'm 30 and i still laugh when my brother farts?
There are so many problems with this study, I don't know where to start. For one thing... how do we even measure maturity? Is it just a physical thing? Most people seem to think that a person is in their prime at around 30, and this study is examining brains, not physique, so I don't think that's the question. Personally, I would judge maturity as when someone "puts away childish things", like... their childish, self-centered worldview, and accepts that they're human, fallible, and really no better than anyone else. They develop a fairly complete reasoning faculty, and enough humility to admit when they're wrong, apologise, and learn from their mistakes. They accept responsibility for their actions, and take care of others as much as they can. I think some sense of spirituality is an important aspect of maturity too -- I'm NOT claiming that religion is required, though. Also... and this is why I'm replying to you... I think an ability to enjoy child-like things without actually being child-*ish* is a good sign too. By these standards, it seems that some people never grow up. The study didn't actually seem to define maturity, or look for people who were in the process of maturing, or had matured, even in the control group.
There has to be a statistical reason why your car insurance is so absurdly high when you're a late teen
I suspect that driving experience/knowledge is a bigger factor. While it's true that younger drivers are more likely to take risks and be more aggressive (which might be related to the driving experience/knowledge thing) it's also true that very good, well trained drivers can be more aggressive and have the ability to manage that aggression/risk.
I've pointed out that one of the major failures of driving schools is that they teach 16 year olds to drive like grandmas. Of course, they get out into the world and they drive based on the fact that their perception and coordination skills are several times better than your average grandma, so to them what they are doing isn't all that risky. In reality, it's risky because they're not taught to drive to the level of their abilities.
full text of article--and please, don't thank me, thank Dartmouth's digital subscription to that journal.
Figures and tables excised because the lameness filter wouldn't accept them.
-AC, Dartmouth '06
Anatomical changes in the emerging adult brain: A voxel-based morphometry study
Craig M. Bennett 1 *, Abigail A. Baird 1 2
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Moore Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
2Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moore Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
email: Craig M. Bennett (craig.bennett@dartmouth.edu)
*Correspondence to Craig M. Bennett, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Moore Hall, Hanover, NH 03755
Funded by:
NICHD; Grant Number: R03 HD45742-01A1
Keywords
magnetic resonance imaging voxel-based morphometry human development
Abstract
Abstract INTRODUCTION SUBJECTS AND METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION Acknowledgements References
Research has consistently confirmed changes occur in brain morphometry between adolescence and adulthood. The purpose of the present study was to explore anatomical change during a specific environmental transition. High-resolution T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were acquired from 19 participants (mean age at initial scan = 18.6 years) during their freshman year. Scans were completed during the fall term and 6 months later before the conclusion of the school year. Voxel-based morphometry was used to assess within-subject change. Significant intensity increases were observed along the right midcingulate, inferior anterior cingulate gyrus, right caudate head, right posterior insula, and bilateral claustrum. Regional changes were not observed in two control groups; one controlling for method and another controlling for age-specific change over time. The results suggest that significant age-related changes in brain structure continue after the age of 18 and may represent dynamic changes related to new environmental challenges. Findings from the regions of change are discussed in the context of specific environmental demands during a period of normative maturation. Hum Brain Mapp, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Received: 2 March 2005; Accepted: 13 September 2005
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1002/hbm.20218 About DOI
Article Text
INTRODUCTION
Abstract INTRODUCTION SUBJECTS AND METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION Acknowledgements References
The transition from adolescence to adulthood is known to be a time of tremendous change. Between the ages of 18 and 25, most young adults move away from their parents or guardians and become self supported for the first time [Cohen et al., [2003]]. Marked shifts in the romantic relationships, risk-taking behavior, insight, and worldviews of young adults have been well documented during this time [Arnett, [2000]]. Such research has demonstrated convincingly that a person continues to mature behaviorally between the ages of 18 and 25; however, changes in brain structure accompanying this period of development have remained unclear. A thorough understanding of the structural and functional changes occurring in the brain during young adulthood is critical to advancing our knowledge of the neural basis of cognitive, social, and emotional development.
Postmortem studies were the first to reveal that development in the central nervous system begins during gestation and continues well into the third decade of life [Benes et al., [1994]; Brody et al., [1987]; Hunter et al., [1997]; Yakovlev and Lecours, [1967]]. These findings have been supported by work using positron emission tomography (PET), which can provide regional measures of baseline glucose metabolism. Using this method, cortical metabolic activity across the brain has been shown to reach stable, adult-like, levels in the mid-twenties [Van Bogaert et al., [1998]]. More recently, studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have confi
I'll be turning 28 this year, and I feel like I've still got plenty of maturing to do. When I think about what I was like at 18 or 20 or 22, I feel like I'm remembering a completely different person. Anyone in their late 20s or early 30s can tell you maturity doesn't magically appear when you graduate high school or stop being a teenager or even graduate college. And that's not in a "kids these days are so immature" way, it's "Wow, I can't believe I was so immature at that age".
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Of course people don't mature until their mid-to-late twenties. Why do you think that the U.S. military takes 18 to 26 year olds during drafts? It's because most 18 to 26 year olds aren't mature enough yet to have a nice, healthy fear of death, paralysis, disfigurement, etc. (This isn't a dig on anybody. I'm eternally grateful for the service of the men and women in the armed forces... it just takes a certain mindset that most people lose as they "mature".)
The Power to Serve
couldn't have said it better itself, you understand the spirit of democracy
the person you are responding to meanwhile, would seem to be happier living in a corrupt autocratic orwellian state where some "know" and others "don't"
can you believe that classist aristocratic bullshit?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the end result of your thinking is aristocracy, autocracy, and classism
why do we have juries of our peers?
why trust joe sixpack to interpret complicated dna evidence instead of expert judges who have studied the matter?
the reason is, these people have agendas. they are not impartial or neutral
the problem with you is that you equate education and intelligence with what you are really talking about: indoctrination into a given agenda
to you there is a "right" way that an elite subculture knows what is best and the common people can't possibly understand what is good for them
this is the same type of thinking that runs china, for example
your instincts are non-democratic
a democracy places trust in it's PEOPLE because the people know better about who should rule them than anyone else, period, end of story
if you don't trust the common man, move to north korea, where they understand the way you think very well
you are genuinely stupid and evil
if the united states as a democracy is ever to come to an end, it is because of people who think like you
you are the enemy of democracy, the way you think
you don't trust the common man
you are an elitist snob
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As you have shown, maturity was brought upon by the hefty requirement for survival. What I would wonder is how this might 'erode' over time as the responsibility is lessened, and/or they children are exposed to the more carefree individuals of a similar age.
Moreover, how well do your children interact with children of their own age? I have a family member who adopted a young girl from Russia. She's been with his family for a long time now and you really couldn't much tell where she came from, but in the beginning she seemed to carry a very heavy load.
Also, to you and all who are willing to give these children an extra chance at life: bless you, and may happiness smile upon you and your family.
As a recovering addict, I found that my maturity growth slowed dramatically when my addiction took hold. It wasn't until I started getting sober that I realized I was behind the rest of the world. I was a functioning adult with the maturity level of a 12 year old. A bad combination. There are ways to get out of the disease of addiction though.
Alcoholics Anonymous - Alcohol (duh)
Narcotics Anonymous - Drugs
Overeaters Anonymous - Food
Co-Dependants Anonymous - Co-Dependancy
Sexaholics Anonymous - Internet Porn
Gamblers Anonymous - Internet/Live Gambling
The poison chooses the cure.
Anybody else surprised that the answer wasn't 42?
Humans change throughout their lives - whether it's puberty, menopause or old-age grumpiness due to hormonal changes. So when someone decides to investigate when "maturity" happens they are introducing a cutoff. In such a situation the important question is to ask why they are doing this - it's almost certainly not a pure research issue if they are giving it a name like "maturity". For example they may be trying to justify a political position: maybe something about the age of consent or the age of majority. It might not be apparent from their research but you can be sure it's there.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
You're asking slashdot?
doesn't set in until an individual is willing to take responsibility for ALL of their actions, good or bad. I've met young children who are very mature and senior citizens that refuse to take responsibility for anything in their lives.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
us here.
Maturity != Responsibility.
Think of the word in the more literally sense. For something to mature is to reach it's development peak or hop over the bell curve and reach close to 90% of it, then its mature. Same applied to financial markets, your bonds can "mature", etc.
So, you can have a 80 year old man thats not responsible, but his brain technically "matured" to its development peak, perhaps when he was 24 years old.
You can also have a 6 year old thats very responsible, puts away all his toys and keeps his room clean, but that doesn't mean that his brain has matured, it will continue changing at a rapid rate and his core personality will change for a while after that.
There isn't alot you can do in your environment to alter this primative function of your brain reaching maturity.
At least I hope, and beleive that this is what these reseachers are truely trying to observe.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
If not, I recommend you get aquainted with someone who works professionally in the adoption system and ask to see the listings of children available for adoption for any state in the USA.
With a little stretch of the imagination we could make a much larger theory out of your statement regarding risk/car insurance.
:).
Lets assume everyone (of any age) is fully intelligent and mature, being as intelligent and mature as they are, they would of course take action based on a weighted-risk decision making process.
Now this very intelligent and mature person knows, that in their younger years, they have very little risk. Very little to lose. No mortgage to pay, no kids to take care of, no wife to beat, etc.
Hence the decisions made by these entirely equally intelligent (and mature!) youngsters are perfectly logical. They are able to do things which may seem a bit crazy to the older folk with more to lose, but given their nice young (and simple) circumstances, the decision is quite logical.
Same reason most of your fancy startup companies are coming from kids who dropped out of Stanford... They have very little to lose. Sure, all the super wise older teachers, parents, mentors tell them they are crazy, stupid, and immature... But they aren't crazy, they've just got nothing to lose.
But don't listen to me, I'm only 12
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
Maturity -n.- muh-CHUR-i-TEE (someone's going to have to tell me where to find the schwa character)
1. The state of being where a person derives a sense of realism and perspective where there was little or none previously.
2. The condition of being as in 1. with the corollary realization of one's previous lack in this regard and a desire to assume the responsibilities associated with that realization.
Maturity happens through experiances. There is no age for it. I have met 12 year olds who are more mature and functional in the real world then the people I go to college with. It is just a matter of how much criticle thinking you have to do for your own welfare.
I personally think this study is pretty meaningless in order to find out when maturity sets in. Your putting your subjects through a (somewhat) emotionally traumatic event and seeing what effects it has on the brain. The only thing I think this will do is see how does changing from an enviroment where responsibility is on someone else's shoulder to one where it is not effects the brain.
Never could figure out why my girl liked my bitch tits, then I found out she was a lesbian.
There has to be a statistical reason why your car insurance is so absurdly high when you're a late teen, with a steady decrease before a significant reduction at the age of 35.
There's elementary survival statistics here, for one thing. Significant numbers of the worst drivers get themselves killed; the survivors will overall be better drivers. Older people have survived longer therefore are more likely to be better drivers.
never thought i'd ask this :-D
please mod me (parent post) down! if you read the reply to my post, you will see i was reasoning from wrong assumptions
During WWII there were teenagers flying fighter planes and officers in their 20s commanding warships. In peace time parents are reluctant to let a teenager take the Volvo and what company would routinely entrust someone in their early 20's with an asset as valuable as a destroyer or attack submarine?
Remove the safety net and people mature quickly, taking on incredible responsibility. Knowing Daddy's lawyer and credit cards can bail you out of trouble retards maturity.
27.
If you're lucky.
---Excuse the bad English, I'm American---
Money can't buy you happiness, but it can rent it for you.
Similarly, money can't buy you love, but again, it's available for rent.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
You see 20 year olds voting for those politicians who CLAIM to care really care about the environment and the world's state. In other words those 20 year olds were young enough to be had.
More frightening, I know some girls in high school who voted for Clinton because he looked cuter. Then again, I've found more older people who vote straight party lines which I personally see as about the most idiotic voting practice you can do. Anyone else think it's a disservice to encourage people to vote when they're disinclined to it? You get people voting who don't know the issues, don't know the candidates. Everyone should have the right to vote. Only those willing to intelligently vote ought to.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.
Are not.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I am 22, and have spent most of my life since 13 studying at schools in different countries then the one where my family lives and works. Thus, I guess that whole '100 miles or more' from the article applies to me, but for high school it was more like 2000 miles, and for college more like 12000 miles. I am currently a director on the board of three companies in my father's group with a combined turnover of $10,000,000.00 annually, in the jewellry manufacturing, diamond polishing, and luxury retail sectors. While this is not a massive turnover by any means, being as we are located in a developing country, and that we employ over 150 people across the group, and that we've been around since 1970, we are in the top 125 companies in my country (top 100 in a few years if everything goes to plan). What does this have to do with maturity? Well, being 22, male, having gone to a liberal arts college in the USA, having grown up on a tropical island, yep, its a developing independant island nation, I naturaly am completely spoiled, party-addicted, hopelessly immature, ex-school and university party and comedic personality, and basically the type of person who was late for everything in all parts of my education and life, perpetually underachieved and defaulted on my responsiblities due to party binges, I handed in my all-too long thesis that I still don't believe is finished on the last possible day, a month late of the original final deadline, still somehow graduated with my double major, and promptly stopped on stage at graduation, attempted to coerce the crowd into increased applause, which they obliged, and then swayed over to the president to collect my degree. Now, less about me, more about maturity. I was asked by my father to come back here to work with him, and I naturally wanted to come and hang out back home for a while (tropical island, duh!), so I said okay during my winter break before graduation, little did I know what I was getting into. Two days after graduation, I was in New York, meeting clients, and learning the business in their many offices for two weeks. This entire work and responsibilty shock snow-balled to the point where my father, after dragging me all over to meet our associates and giving me a few months running around the companies and departments, just threw me into the top of the management structure, and stepped back, and in fact over the last three months, our peak selling season at retail, he has been overseas not really on business for about a month, and was at home, albeit with a sprained ankle, for 3 weeks, with me driving him to work when he wanted! On top of this, leaving me to take care of any other personal investment projects that he seems to have conveniantly left to me to look after. The long and short of all this is that I have and had no desire to manage the family finances, and thus be responsible for myself, my mother and my sister, be responsible to all those employees for the health of the company and thus their jobs, their familes income and thus lives, and any and all the other mistakes and irresponsibilites my father may have made in the past that have been thrust on me as a new manager and memeber of the controlling family, but I unfortunately have had no choice thus far, I have been forced to give up my life, from getting drunk 4 days a week, getting high everyday, basically being one of those people you hate if you work hard because they seem to never do, to someone who never goes out, who falls asleep in front of the TV on Friday nights while all his friends are waiting for him at the bars/restaurants/nightclubs, and in fact I've even started doing the same thing Sat nights as I work Saturdays to, and I can't do the whole socializing and work thing anymore, I tried so hard for the first 6 months but its nearly impossible now, I even used to go out mid-week in the begining. So the question is, am I more mature because I've changed my life to adapt to these responsibilites that I can't avoid because there are so many people depending on me to be there everyday, to work at
Maturity sets in when you realise that the volume control turns down, too.
In other words: this simply reeks of physiologizing. Maturity is a class of behaviors. If you want to know when it typically develops, get off your ass and measure that. What happens inside the skin adds nothing to the account.
In judging when maturity sets in, this experiment automatically assumes it is when a person goes to college? How is this a legitimate study?
In this study, their control group is designed to control the variable of age.
You are absolutely right in thinking they need to think of more details, since perhaps there is a difference between college and non-college students.
This is why in a good scientific experiment, we often talk about controls, plural, not control, singular.
My guess is that the researchers didn't look beyond college students for the simple reason that they are at a university, and it is easy to get student volunteers for a study but hard to get non-student volunteers.
Read the fucking story title, then read my post, then jump off a cliff for a modding it a troll. Why can't you learn to establish the context before modding like a reactionist machine parser?
Driving.
You ever think about how you accelerate or brake? I do. Sometimes i brake at a linear rate (second deriv = 0). Sometimes I brake at a progressive rate (second deriv != 0). Its all in whether you're going for a certain deceleration rate or if you're responding to the situation (or neither).
Approximatly 90% of people who are in the top 1% of wealth today did not have parents who were in the top 1%. Income mobility is extreme in the US.
Having grown up in a dirt-poor rural area, I know for a fact that the vast majority of poor people who are there are there precisely because of decisions they have made. Luck has little to do with it. Same is true on the other end. I have yet to meet a smart, hard-working poor person (well, except grad students and post docs, but that is another story).
there are just as many on the right who are undemocratic as on the left
in the 1990s, in the age of newt gingrich, everything you just said would have applied, except replace "left" with "right" and visa versa
even what you said about the media: it's funny how the right complained about the left dominated media in the 1990s, and now in the 2000s the left complains about the right dominated media with the rise of fox news and such
complaining about the media, from the right or the left is a retarded cop out, blaming the media for what the american people, whom we both have faith in, have decided for themselves
the pendulum swings, back and forth... in the 2010s the left will be ascendant again, in the 2020s the right, etc...
and no matter what the braindead kneejerk partisans or demagogues, from the right OR left say, we both know the american people, the great silent moderate middle, will decide what is best
the fringes- on the right or left, are loud and dumb, and the moderate middle is quiet and wise
and thus the power of democracy, the quiet middle always wins, it lends incredible legitimacy and stability to our government
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
With the western idea of "maturity" comes the death of creativity. Never grow up!
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1