Previous volumetric developmental MRI studies of the brain have shown white matter development continuing through adolescence and into adulthood. This review presents current findings regarding white matter development and organization from diffusion MRI studies. The general trend during adolescence (age 12-18 years) is towards increasing…

During adolescence, cognitive abilities increase robustly. To search for possible related structural alterations of the cerebral cortex, we measured neuronal soma dimension (NSD = width times height), cortical thickness and neuronal densities in different types of neocortex in post-mortem brains of five 12-16 and five 17-24 year-olds (each 2F,…

Exposure to severe air pollution produces neuroinflammation and structural brain alterations in children. We tested whether patterns of brain growth, cognitive deficits and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) are associated with exposures to severe air pollution. Baseline and 1 year follow-up measurements of global and regional brain MRI volumes,…

Developmental cognitive neuroscience is a rapidly growing field that examines the relationships between biological development and cognitive ability. In the past decade, there has been ongoing refinement of concepts and methodology related to the study of "functional connectivity" among distributed brain regions believed to underlie cognition and…

Adolescence is a time of increased divergence between males and females in physical characteristics, behavior, and risk for psychopathology. Here we will review data regarding sex differences in brain structure and function during this period of the lifespan. The most consistent sex difference in brain morphometry is the 9-12% larger brain size…