āYour brain isnāt fully formed until youāre 25ā: A neuroscientist demolishes the greatest mind myth
You may heard that if youāre under 25, your brain isnāt fully developed yet. It's an adage supposing that individuals under 25 canāt think things through or make rational decisions, and so are less responsible than older folk. This logic has now formed the basis of officialĀ government advice,Ā sentencing, and more.
The only problem with this fact isā¦ itāsĀ notĀ a fact. Never has been. No matter how many TikTokers insist otherwise.
Why is it wrong? Well, lots of reasons.
Thereās no real evidence for the āage 25ā claim
Despite its prevalence, thereās no actual data set or specific study that can be invoked or pointed at as the obvious source of the claim that āthe human brain stops developing at age 25ā.
It could be a misunderstanding, stemming from brain scanning studies which looked at subjectsĀ up toĀ the age of 25. But thatās like saying sprinters can only run 100 metres at most after watching the 100m final at the Olympics. The limit is imposed by the context, not biology.
Others argue that 25 is simply a pleasing-sounding number, and the idea caught on purely as a result. Stranger myths have spread this way ā looking at you, āwe only useĀ 10 per centĀ of our brainsā.
āDevelopingā does not mean ānon-functioningā
Just because age 25Ā isnātĀ some firm endpoint for development, it doesnāt mean the brain isnāt developing before then. Because it is. Itās developingĀ afterĀ that age too, in many cases.
Exactly when ādevelopingā and āmaturationā ends is tricky to pin down. The human is essentially an assemblage of many different regions, of varying degrees of complexity,Ā maturing at different rates.
But even if we focus on the frontal lobe, where all the reasoning and thinking occurs (mostly), itās still very important to remember that brain development isnāt like the building of a house. You don't have to wait until all the walls and floors are done, the plumbing is sorted out and the electrics are installed before it can beĀ used. Before you can actually live in it.
Itās more like evolution. There were many evolutionary species between the primitive rodent-like creatures that were the first mammals, and modern-day humans. But each of these stages was, at that point, a fully functional, successful species. There were no unworkable intermediary species, like a rat's torso on a pair of massive bipedal legs.
So it is with the human brain. Even if you believe that people under 25 arenāt āas goodā at decision-making as older people, it doesnāt mean they canāt do it, or shouldnāt be allowed to.
I, for example, am nowhere near as strong as someone like renowned British Worldās Strongest Man competitorĀ Eddie āThe Beastā Hall. But that in no way disqualifies me from bringing the heavy shopping in from the car.
If it is true, we need serious societal upheaval
Even if itās entirely well-intended, basing official legislation or government policy on the premise that the human brain is not sufficiently developed before age 25 sets aĀ veryĀ significant precedent. If 25 is seen as the legal minimum where you can be trusted to think things through and make decisions, then that would logically apply toĀ allĀ facets of life.
For instance, countless people choose and complete their degrees and even PhDs long before their mid-twenties. Also, the UK is the only country in Europe that allows recruitment in the military of individuals agedĀ under 18. And they must serve until theyāre 22!
Football academies canĀ accept players from age 9.Ā And 25 is closer to retirement age for a professional footballer, as well as many other top athletic pursuits.
hese are just three examples of people being trusted to make massively life-affecting decisions long before their brains are āfully developedā. And if we start insisting that anyone under 25 is too underdeveloped to do this, that has serious ramifications.
Letās take it further. Suppose the argument is that your reasoning abilities must function at maximum before you can decide anything important. In that case, we need aĀ maximumĀ age too, not just a minimum.
Development is one thing, but thereās also cognitive decline. Because age and entropy canāt be avoided. Thatās why peopleĀ from middle age and later show reduced mental abilities. However, some studies suggest our cognitionĀ truly starts to decline in our twenties. This would suggest thereās maybe a window of a few months when we can be ātrustedā to make decisions.
Of course, this is a wildly reductionist, overly simplistic perspective. But the same can be said about the whole āunder 25ā thing. Even if it were true. Which is mostly isnāt. And you donāt need to be a certain age to grasp that.
