Kirstie J Whitaker, Petra E Vértes, Rafael Romero-Garcia, František Váša, Michael Moutoussis, Gita Prabhu, Nikolaus Weiskopf, Martina F Callaghan, Konrad Wagstyl, Timothy Rittman, Roger Tait, Cinly Ooi, John Suckling, Becky Inkster, Peter Fonagy, Raymond J Dolan, Peter B Jones, Ian M Goodyer, Edward T Bullmore
How does human brain structure mature during adolescence? We used MRI to measure cortical thickness and intracortical myelination in 297 population volunteers aged 14-24 y old. We found and replicated that association cortical areas were thicker and less myelinated than primary cortical areas at 14 y. However, association cortex had faster rates of shrinkage and myelination over the course of adolescence. Age-related increases in cortical myelination were maximized approximately at the internal layer of projection neurons...
August 9, 2016: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America