: The prefrontal cortex (responsible for rational thinking) stops growing at age 25. Does that mean that one’s ability to conduct a complex reasoning only decreases after age 25 ?

Question

Or is that unrelated ? I guess what I’m wondering is are we able to produce more and more complex reasoning as we age despite the fact that our prefrontal cortex only shrinks as time goes by ?

In: Biology

Answer 1

My understanding was that most of the *growth* happened as a child and teen years, and much of adolescence and young-adult hood (up to the age of ~25) is the *pruning* of the brain to make it more efficient.

I was told tat this pruning process mostly starts at the back of the brain, and works it’s way forward, so your prefrontal cortex is the last part to be adjusted in this manner.

We could presume from this that your innate potential for complex reasoning and planning grows more advanced until the age of ~25, and then plateus.

However, your actually ability to plan will still depend on other mental factors, like the knowledge and skills you have.

Your ability to conduct complex reasoning and plans depends on both the state of your prefrontal cortext, and things you have learnt, and improving either has the potential to improve your complex reaosning.