Summary: A new study reveals the timeline for the development of executive function in adolescents, indicating that it typically matures around 18 years old. This study, which included over 10,000 participants and multiple datasets, provides valuable information for education, psychiatry, and the judicial system.
Key Facts:
- The study, based on over 10,000 participants, found that executive function generally matures by 18 years old.
- Data showed a rapid growth in executive function from late childhood to mid-adolescence (10-15 years old), with stability reached by late adolescence (18-20).
- This comprehensive roadmap of cognitive development can be instrumental in detecting deviations and facilitating early diagnosis of mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
Source: University of Pennsylvania
When do adolescents start thinking like adults?
A recent study published in Nature Communications provides compelling evidence that executive function, which encompasses skills like task-switching, focus, and resisting distractions, typically matures by the age of 18.
The study utilized data from over 10,000 participants across four different datasets, resulting in a large-scale chart showcasing the cognitive development of teenagers.
These findings have significant implications for psychiatrists, neuroscientists, parents, educators, and even the judicial system, as they help define the boundaries of adolescence.
Senior author Beatriz Luna, Ph.D., a renowned expert in neurocognitive development and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, acknowledges that many parents are skeptical about their 18-year-olds being fully formed adults. However, she emphasizes that executive function reliably improves with age and typically reaches maturity by 18.
Unlike the well-defined milestones of childhood, adolescence has been less formally characterized due to the complex developmental processes triggered by puberty. Previous attempts to map brain development in teens were hindered by individual variability and limited data analysis tools.
Lead author Brenden Tervo-Clemmens, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Minnesota, underscores the significance of their study, which combines developmental science with big data. The researchers leveraged new tools and open data-sharing to conduct a study of this magnitude and precision.
The study involved collecting 23 measures of executive function from participants aged 8 to 35. By tracking changes over time and analyzing performance across different tests, the researchers observed a common pattern of executive function maturation shared by both sexes. This pattern indicated rapid development from late childhood to mid-adolescence, followed by subtle but significant changes through mid-adolescence, eventually stabilizing to adult-level performance by late adolescence.
By establishing reproducible growth charts across tasks and datasets, this roadmap enables researchers to monitor the impact of therapeutic interventions and drugs on developmental milestones. It can also aid in the early diagnosis of mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, which often emerge during adolescence and involve impaired executive function.
The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Staunton Farm Foundation.
About this cognitive and developmental neuroscience research news
Author: Anastasia Gorelova
Source: University of Pennsylvania
Contact: Anastasia Gorelova – University of Pennsylvania
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“A canonical trajectory of executive function maturation from adolescence to adulthood” by Beatriz Luna et al. Nature Communications
Abstract
A canonical trajectory of executive function maturation from adolescence to adulthood
Theories of human neurobehavioral development suggest executive functions mature from childhood through adolescence, underlying adolescent risk-taking and the emergence of psychopathology.
Investigations with relatively small datasets or narrow subsets of measures have identified general executive function development, but the specific maturational timing and independence of potential executive function subcomponents remain unknown.
Integrating four independent datasets (N = 10,766; 8–35 years old) with twenty-three measures from seventeen tasks, we provide a precise charting, multi-assessment investigation, and replication of executive function development from adolescence to adulthood.
Across assessments and datasets, executive functions follow a canonical non-linear trajectory, with rapid and statistically significant development in late childhood to mid-adolescence (10–15 years old), before stabilizing to adult-levels in late adolescence (18–20 years old).
Age effects are well captured by domain-general processes that generate reproducible developmental templates across assessments and datasets.
Results provide a canonical trajectory of executive function maturation that demarcates the boundaries of adolescence and can be integrated into future studies.
