Abstract

The peak age of onset for many psychiatric disorders is adolescence, a time of remarkable physical and behavioural changes. The processes in the brain that underlie these behavioural changes have been the subject of recent investigations. What do we know about the maturation of the human brain during adolescence? Do structural changes in the cerebral cortex reflect synaptic pruning? Are increases in white-matter volume driven by myelination? Is the adolescent brain more or less sensitive to reward? Finding answers to these questions might enable us to further our understanding of mental health during adolescence.

Author affiliations

1. Tomá Paus is at the Brain & Body Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK and at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, H2A 3B4, Canada.
2. Matcheri Keshavan is at the Beth Israel and Deaconess Medical center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; at Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48201, USA.
3. Jay N. Giedd is at the Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1600, USA.

Correspondence to: Tomá Paus¹ Email: tomas.paus@nottingham.ac.uk

Correspondence to: Jay N. Giedd³ Email: jgiedd@mail.nih.gov

Published online 12 November 2008

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