Revealed: the teenage brain upgrades that occur before adulthood

Humans 25 July 2016
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Where’s your head at?

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Schizophrenia link



The most profound editing appears to occur in the busiest hubs of the brain, in areas that link various regions together. When Whitaker’s team compared the most edited areas with maps of brain gene activity, they found that the most active genes in these hubs are linked to improving signal speed.

But they also found that genes that have been linked with schizophrenia are also particularly active in these areas. This adds to evidence that errors in the way brain connections are edited during the adolescent years could lead to this disorder.

“If you are distressed as a child, you myelinate more quickly, in a kind of panic, instead of taking longer to figure out the optimal processing network,” says Whitaker.

The team is planning to continue re-scanning the brains of the 300 participants in the study, to see if any go on to develop conditions that can be traced back to their teenage brain development. “Not many will develop schizophrenia, but we’re also interest in mood disorders and depression,” says Whitaker.

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1601745113

Read more: Overactive brain pruning in teens could cause schizophrenia

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