When are we (really) adults? Neuroscience has the answer

"For me, maturing has to do with what happens to you and you get out of it, and for that, there's no age, it's your turn when it's your turn," said Alaska in a statement. interviewS Fashion. And scientists and psychologists give part of the reason. Peter Jones, a professor at the University of Cambridge, recently said at a neuroscience meeting organized by the Oxford Academy of Medical Sciences: "The age at which one becomes an adult is different for everyone", They picked up on BBC. Ensuring that, in the ever-changing brain, there is no barrier that separates adolescence from adulthood: "People are on a path, they follow a path." But yes, showing this adjustment in which science considers that the brain reaches its maturity does not reach 30.

"I guess systems such as education, health, and legal systems make it easy to make definitions," Jones said. At what age should it be placed in adulthood? and with it the responsibilities that follow from this idea of ​​maturity, This is a topic of debate – In Spain, the idea of ​​raising the voting age to 16 has been discussed on several occasions. The executive functions, personality and decision-making are located in the frontal lobe of the brain and this area, according to a study of the Department of Evaluation and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation of the University of Huelva, "is the last brain to reach full maturity "Dr. Somerville, a neuroscientist at Harvard, said The New York Times that in this part of the brain "new connections emerge up to 30 years and even later". "Teens do it as well as adults in cognition tests," says Carl Zimmer in the same article in the US newspaper, "but if they're feeling strong emotions, those scores may drop." The problem seems to be that teens have not yet developed a strong brain system that keeps emotions under controlwhich can take a surprisingly long time to mature.

This emotional management ability, he explains to S Fashion Guillermo Fouce, Doctor of Psychology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, if psycho-social, is closely related to the vital conditions of each person: "Feeling or not, adults are going to have to deal with culture and lifestyles.We often talk about ceasing to be young to become adults when we are independent – without losing sight of the fact that it's cultural creations, before we go directly from child to adult, "he says.During adolescence, we do not know who he is and we look for his identity. The ability to think for oneself, the determination of "I want to be this or I will do it" conditions this psychological maturity. "

Other aspects that, from the psychological point of view, indicate that maturity is reached are, as he points out in The spirit is wonderful the specialist of general psychology of health and emotional education, Raquel Aldana, self-awareness (know how to recognize what you think and feel), l & # 39; empathy (without the emotion of others overwhelm us), to be left alone without being punished for his mistakes, a greater emotional openness or change the complaint by determination and to act in the face of adversity. Capabilities that Guillermo Fouce believes are only "acquired for long periods. independence plays a fundamental roleIf you do not have situations to develop them, you can not reach them. For example, a person living in the house of his parents can not run his autonomy in the same way.

Meanwhile, terms like adult to try to understand what it's like to be adults for the generation millennium, "all the rules of what it means to be an adult have been rejected, "they explain in a consumer study conducted by BuzzFeed. Y Ideas like the reality of adolescence are embellished; where the lack of links is celebrated the truth that is hidden in many occasions is the impossibility of achieving economic stability. It's not just that the 30's are the new 20's because they have "delayed the stages and prolonged life," says Fouce. "The increased dependence of these long-term adolescents can affect their maturation," Andrés Ortega said in his article. Long adolescence, in The country. The socio-economic reality weighs in this direction of maturity when, compared to the baby boomersthose who are surrounded by the idea of ​​having children, buying a house or even renting it, find it intangible. Neuroscience points out that at 30 years old, our brains are adults, but all thirties can not or do not want to be (according to these standardized terms) in increasingly precarious living conditions.