Write articles on the topic How brain change and develop as we grow and age?
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Like the rest of your body, your brain changes with each passing year. From the time we are infants, our brains are adapting, learning, making memories and more. We become smarter and sharper, earning the wisdom that truly only comes with life experience. The less desirable effects of the march of time can certainly be felt, too. You may recognize them: An ever-lost set of keys, a to-do that never seems to stay top of mind, a name that’s on the tip of your tongue.
Once we hit our late twenties, the brain’s aging process begins and we begin losing neurons—the cells that make up the brain and nervous system. By our sixties, our brains have literally begun to shrink. Though these brain changes may sound a bit scary, the process is natural and it happens to everyone.
Learn how your brain changes as you age to get a better handle on what is happening in this magical part of your body. Then, review some of the things that you can do to help preserve brain health. Though some change is inevitable, some can be warded off with a healthy lifestyle. Here’s how you can take an active role in slowing negative effects and working to stay sharper, longer.
Birth to Toddler Years
You are born with basic survival skills, reflexes and most of the 100 billion neurons that you’ll have for the duration of your life. The brain grows incredibly rapidly during these early years: Neurons get bigger, work more efficiently and—as a result of environmental input and stimuli—make trillions of connections that fine-tune everything from hearing to vision. By two years old, your brain is about 80 percent of its adult size.
Early to Middle Childhood
About 85 percent of brain development has occurred by now, including intellect, personality and motor and social skills. A child’s brain has twice as many synapses as an adult’s brain. In a process called pruning, the neural connections that are used and reinforced most often—like those used for language—are strengthened, while the ones that are not utilized as much fizzle and die. (That’s why parents are often encouraged to repeat certain activities, like reading books, with their kids every day.)
Teens
At this point the brain reaches its adult weight of about three pounds. Increased activity in the frontal lobes allows a teenager to compare several concepts at once.
20s
The regions in the frontal lobe that are responsible for judgment, planning, weighing risks and decision-making finally finish developing. A twenty-something’s brain has reached its peak in terms of performance.
Late 20s to Early 30s
As you age, your brain goes through changes that can slow down your thinking: It loses volume, the cortex becomes thinner, the myelin sheath surrounding the fibers of your neurons begins to degrade, and your brain receptors don’t fire as quickly.
Mid 30s
In the 30s, memory begins to slip as the number of neurons in the brain decreases. It may take longer to learn new things or memorize words or names. This process continues in the decades ahead.
40s and 50s
From your mid 40s to late 50s, your reasoning skills slow. In a group of people who were first tested on various mental abilities when they were 45–49 years old, reasoning skills declined by 3.6 percent over 10 years, according to research in the British Medical Journal. The middle-age participants also experienced fading sharpness in memory and verbal fluency—the ability to say words quickly in a specific category.
60s
The brain has begun to shrink in size and, after a lifetime of gaining accumulated knowledge, it becomes less efficient at accessing that knowledge and adding to it. The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s is advancing age, and most individuals with the disease are 65 or older.
70s and 80s
Your risk of developing Alzheimer’s increases with age, reaching 50 percent by age 85. Researchers aren’t sure why the risk jumps so dramatically as we get older, but it’s possible the disease is linked to inflammation, a natural part of aging that can lead to a build-up of deposits in areas like the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for forming new memories.