Human brain development continues until approximately age twenty-five
Multiple neurodevelopmental and transcriptomic studies support the widely cited finding that human brain structural and functional maturation, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, continues into the mid-twenties.
The retrieved papers provide robust evidence from gene expression, neurophysiology, and cognitive neuroscience showing that structural and functional maturation of the human brain—specifically the prefrontal cortex—continues through late adolescence and up to approximately age 25.
L. W. Harris, Helen E Lockstone, P. Khaitovich, C. Weickert, M. Webster, Sabine Bahn. Gene expression in the prefrontal cortex during adolescence: implications for the onset of schizophrenia. 2009. https://doi.org/10.1186/1755-8794-2-28
Gene expression analysis in the prefrontal cortex demonstrates that critical maturational processes, such as white matter volume increases and molecular stabilization, continue through late adolescence and into the mid-twenties.
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Zachariah R. Cross, Samantha M. Gray, Adam J. O. Dede, Yessenia M. Rivera, Q. Yin, Parisa Vahidi, E. M. Rau, Christopher Cyr, A. M. Holubecki, E. Asano, Jack J. Lin, Olivia Kim Mcmanus, Shifteh Sattar, Ignacio Saez, Fady Girgis, David King-Stephens, Peter B. Weber, K. Laxer, Stephan U. Schuele, Joshua M. Rosenow, Joyce Y. Wu, Sandi K. Lam, Jeffrey S. Raskin, Edward F. Chang, Ammar Shaikhouni, Peter Brunner, Jarod L. Roland, R. M. Braga, Robert T. Knight, N. Ofen, E. Johnson. The development of aperiodic neural activity in the human brain. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02270-x
Neurophysiological recordings show that aperiodic neural activity and prefrontal cortex development extend into young adulthood, supporting ongoing brain maturation.
Qu Y, Ou J, Pang L, Wu S, Luo Y, Behrens T, Liu Y. Development of non-spatial grid-like neural codes tracks inference and intelligence.. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.02.028
Investigation of cognitive schemas and neural codes in participants up to age 25 indicates that key structural and functional brain networks mature progressively into the mid-twenties.
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