"The Brain Doesn't Mature Until 25": A Harmful Piece of Misinformation

It is very poorly understood by almost everyone. Even people who know that there is some sort of 'misconception' about the age of 25 and the brain usually don't know what they're talking about and are regurgitating nonsense they heard elsewhere. It's especially bad on reddit where people have very low reading comprehension skills and for some reason are desperate to keep this myth going on. Like it's a sort of truthiness they can use to justify denying autonomy to those under 25.

The way the brain's maturity is measured in this is the prefrontal cortex, and the way 'maturity/fully developed' is measured is by myelination or pruning of gray matter. The problem is that this continues until death. There isn't some magical 'full development' property going on between 18 and 25. It occurs at the same rate until you die and many forms of capacity are observed at a mature/adult-level before one even reaches 18.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3156171/

It isn't immature before the mid-twenties and there is no shift around this age/age range. It is quite literally non-existent and this viewpoint comes from Jay Giedd (a neuroscientist) having a study of people up to age 21 and assuming that maturity would cede at age 25, and Laurence Steinberg trying to promote his flawed Dual Systems Model. The damage these two alone have done is absurd. What's even more absurd is that this guy, who helped pave the way for this idiocy has argued that 15/16 year olds are perfectly capable of consent.

Before you cry about age gaps being utilized as an example, remember that it is one of the most prominent ways the myth is utilized against people.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/72002985/null

> "Once you get to age 15 or 16, you're able to do it just as well as an adult, so I would not be concerned about the age difference between a 25-year-old and an 18-year-old. ... It doesn't make me queasy. You're talking about a seven-year age gap. There are plenty of married couples where the age gap between husband and wife is seven years."

> Even if the relationship began when Jenner was 17, Steinberg doesn't see any need for concern. Though California law says she was unable to consent to sex, science suggests otherwise.

> "It does give some people pause to think about a 24-year-old or a 25-year-old dating someone who's still high school-aged, but in terms of brain development - there may be other reasons to be concerned, but brain development isn't one of them," Steinberg said.