Jemma Spike

What if he had five hairs?

Probably still bald.

What if he had 500 hairs?

You know, there is a point at which one additional hair stops that man from being bald.

And I know that sounds like a weird analogy for brain development, but there is a point where one slight neural change takes somebody's brain from not developed to developed.

so that's like the interesting thing that is going to be different for everybody the other thing is that the brain continues to change across the lifespan new paths are constantly being paved old paths are scrapped we lose and gain white matter due to learning and changes in our lives so is our brain ever fully developed

Yes, but is it also constantly a work in progress?

Also, yes.

Like, what does development really look like?

Like, what does that peak look like?

This is what the science says these days.

When is our brain fully developed?

Actually, just last year, they kind of got as close as they ever have to answering that question.

And they did it in the most roundabout, confusing way possible, because of course they do.

The study was called, the study that kind of concluded, not once and for all, but pretty solidly what is actually happening, is called topological turning points across the human lifespan.

It was conducted, it was a study conducted out of Cambridge and

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen me talking about this study recently.

But essentially, these researchers analyzed the brain scans of more than 4,000 people from infancy all the way up to 90 years old.

So no, they didn't just stop at 21.

And they specifically looked at white matter changes.