Thinking Away from Home Entering a residential college means experiencing new foods, new friends, and new neurons. A longitudinal study of 18-year-old students at the beginning and end of their first year in college (Dartmouth) found increases in the brain areas that integrate emotion and cognition—namely, the cingulate cortex (blue and yellow), caudate nucleus (red), and insula (orange). Researchers also studied one-year changes in the brains of students over age 25 at the same college and found no dramatic growth.

IMAGE COURTESY CRAIG BENNETT & ABIGAIL BAIRD. FROM ANATOMICAL CHANGES IN THE EMERGING ADULT BRAIN [ABIGAIL BAIRD, CRAIG BENNETT]. HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, VOL. 27, ISSUE 9, PAGES 766–777, SEPT. 2006. COPYRIGHT © 2006, JOHN WILEY AND SONS.