What is it about?
This article discusses recent scientific advances in the study of individual differences in human brain development. Focusing on structural neuroimaging measures of brain morphology and tissue properties, two kinds of variability are related and explored: differences across individuals of the same age and differences across age as a result of development. A recent multidimensional modeling study is explained, which was able to use brain measures to predict an individual's chronological age within about one year on average, in children, adolescents, and young adults between 3 and 20 years old. These findings reveal great regularity in the sequence of the aggregate brain state across different ages and phases of development, despite the pronounced individual differences people show on any single brain measure at any given age. Future research is suggested, incorporating additional measures of brain activity and function.
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Why is it important?
This study produced the most highly accurate algorithm ever published using only biological measures to predict an individual person's chronological age. This has been a longstanding goal in human biology and this study shows that a collection of brain changes reliably occurs as everyone ages, despite large inidivual differences across all people in single brain attributes.
Perspectives
This paper helped launch the now widely used concept of "brain age" in science and in the popular press.
Dr. Tim T. Brown
University of California at San Diego, School of Medicine
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Individual differences in human brain development, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Cognitive Science, December 2016, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1389.
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