Maddie Reay is at a crossroads, a turning point between two lives. Aged 32, she makes a comfortable living, owns her own home in London and is committed to her job in public relations. “But in a lot of ways I don’t feel like a fully grown adult yet,” she says. “I feel like a young person and I’m having a lot of fun. But there is pressure for sure. I want kids, I want to get married.”
Reay is at a time of transition. This tension, which affects many people at this age, is not just a function of social norms. Emerging scientific evidence suggests life is punctuated by pivotal moments at which ageing and development rapidly accelerate. Recent studies from the UK, America, Germany and China have dispelled the notion of a smooth linear ascent from childhood and then gradual decline into our twilight years.
Instead, research into our neurology, genetics, metabolism and microbiology reveal life is marked by a number of tipping points, or cliff edges, as our bodies and brains undergo significant molecular and anatomic shifts.
One study last year by Stanford University in California found dramatic changes to the molecular content of our blood stream in our forties and sixties. Another American study, looking at proteins in blood plasma, found three rapid pulses of ageing in our thirties, sixties and seventies. And a Chinese study found changes to the proteins in the brain in our fifties and seventies, potentially affecting cognition.
But the most detailed study to date, published last month by neuroscientists at Cambridge University, revealed fundamental changes to the very wiring of the brain, at the ages of 9, 32, 66 and 83.
Dr Alexa Mousley, who analysed brain scans from 4,216 people, said the data demarcates five “epochs” of life: childhood, which lasts until 9; adolescence, which lasts until 32; adulthood, lasting until 66; early ageing, until 83; and then late ageing, for the remainder of life. “The brain doesn’t develop in one linear steady pattern,” Mousley says. “These phases are fluctuations in what the brain is doing at different periods of time.”
These tipping points are averages — not all individuals hit them at exactly the same point. But her data shows distinct leaps which cluster around certain ages.
Read Full article here: Our brains reboot at four key ages. This is how it feels (The Times)