Study Suggests That Brain Growth Continues Into Adolescence

By Linda Jacobson

Brain growth during the first three years of life has received considerable attention from the press and the public in recent years. But a new article in Nature, a weekly science journal, may help end the debate over whether the early years are the only important or "critical" stage of neurological development.

By using magnetic resonance imaging, which produces images of the brain, scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, the National Institute of Mental Health, and McGill University in Montreal have found continuing structural changes in the brain through age 15, even though the brain is already close to its adult size even before children enter school.

"The brain grows not as one piece, but in differential fits and starts for diverse regions," said Kurt W. Fischer, a professor of education at Harvard University and the director of the new Mind, Brain, and Education graduate program there. "The Nature article shows the complexity...