Researchers map rapid growth, slow decline of human brain

An international team of researchers has created a series of brain charts spanning our entire lifespan -- from a 15-week-old foetus to a 100-year-old adult -- that show how our brains expand rapidly in early life and slowly shrink as we age.

To create the BrainChart platform, the researchers, spanning six continents, aggregated the largest neuroimaging dataset to date, consisting of 123,984 MRI scans from 101,457 participants ranging in age from 115 days after conception to 100 years old, drawn from more than 100 primary research studies.