X-Message-Number: 16283 From: "Jan Coetzee" <> Subject: Brain Growth Does Not Stop Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 19:33:28 -0400 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0030_01C0DCAC.C09D6500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" But he noted that people are very different at 40 than at17. ``You're really not the same person. And the issue is -- are you not the same person because you just had an awful lot of experiences or are you not the same person because your computer (brain) is very different? And this study suggests that your computer is very different.'' Study: Brain Growth Does Not Stop in Adolescence By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A key aspect of brain development continues until nearly age 50, scientists said on Monday in a finding that contradicts the current view that such maturation ends before 20 and may shed light on brain ailments such as Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites) and schizophrenia. The researchers, led by Dr. George Bartzokis of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites), used magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain development in 70 normal men aged 19-76. So-called white matter -- which sends signals from one part of the brain to another -- continues to develop in the frontal and temporal lobes on average until 48, the study found. The researchers confirmed that so-called gray matter -- the cerebral cortex -- achieves peak development at the end of adolescence, then declines until old age. ``If your brain is the Internet, gray matter is your computer and the white matter is the telephone lines that connect your computer to all the other computers on the planet,'' Bartzokis, associate chief of staff for mental health at the VA's Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System, said in an interview. ``Most people think of the brain stopping development either in childhood or by the time we are adults,'' Bartzokis said. But he noted that people are very different at 40 than at17. ``You're really not the same person. And the issue is -- are you not the same person because you just had an awful lot of experiences or are you not the same person because your computer (brain) is very different? And this study suggests that your computer is very different.'' The study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry. AGE-RELATED AILMENTS Bartzokis said that understanding how the structures of the brain develop and degenerate over the entire human life span is vital in gaining a better insight into Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and drug addiction. The onset of Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia is closely linked to age. Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain disorder that manifests itself among primarily those over 65, although the disease may have been eating away at the brain for many years. The onset of schizophrenia, a brain disease characterized by delusions, typically is seen in young adulthood. Bartzokis said he focused on the frontal and temporal lobes -- the front part of the brain where memory, higher reasoning and functions such as impulse control take place. These functions define ``who we are as humans,'' Bartzokis added. The brain abnormalities seen in Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and drug addiction such as cocaine dependence are seen in that part of the brain. Suggestions were made in the 1960s that white matter brain development continued into adulthood, but that was based on findings from autopsies, Bartzokis said. He added that he employed an imaging technique that maximized the ability to track white matter maturation in living people. Since both developmental and degenerative changes can be measured in living people, such brain imaging methods can be used to identify what factors interfere with development or promote degeneration of the brain, Bartzokis said. He suggested that imaging could be used to nail down what medications can promote brain development or prevent degeneration. ``It takes 20 to 30 years to actually manifest Alzheimer's even though it's eating up your brain because you have reserve capacity,'' Bartzokis said. ``If you can measure that with imaging when you are 50 and you do an intervention when you are 50 and you change the trajectory (of the disease) even by a little bit, all of a sudden instead of getting Alzheimer's when you are 70, you get it when you are 110. And then it's no longer a problem.'' ------=_NextPart_000_0030_01C0DCAC.C09D6500 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16283