A Teenage Girl’s Brain Gives Her the Edge
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Hayden Bird/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Is it an old wives’ tale that adolescent girls tend to mature quicker than boys?
Not according to scientists at Newcastle University in England, who say all the proof they need to confirm that theory is in the brain.
In examining more than 120 participants ages 4 to 40, Dr. Marcus Kaiser and Sol Lim say their research shows that brain connection reorganization starts earlier in females than males.
What happens is that new neural connections in the brain are established over time while redundant ones just fall away, helping the brain to work more efficiently.
Kaiser and Lim aren’t sure why it happens sooner in girls, enabling them to mature faster than boys during those crucial and often painful teen years. That’s fodder for another study.
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