We are not adults yet A study has revealed that our brain continues to grow until the age of 32. So what?

In one of the most iconic episodes of Friends, we see Joey panicking in front of his 30 birthday candles, screaming to the sky, “Why, Lord, why? We had a deal. Make everyone else age, not me.” And Rachel wondering if it might be possible “to keep the gifts and still be 29.” Getting older, in short, doesn’t appeal to anyone. Especially when it means saying goodbye to the supposed carefree nature of adolescence: that phase which, your thirties are conventionally expected to bury for good, along with a heavy load of responsibilities and expectations. And yet, maybe we have always told ourselves this story the wrong way. For two reasons. The first is scientific: a new study from the University of Cambridge has revealed that our brain does not stop developing at 25, as previously believed, but continues to grow at least until the age of 32. The second is sociological: does it really matter how long we keep growing, if at any point in our lives we are free to choose, change, and question ourselves again? Perhaps the real question is another one: do we ever really stop growing?

The luxury of being incomplete and the frontal lobe story

There is also a subtler issue at play: does knowing that our brain is “not fully formed yet” at 28, 30, or 31 absolve us of responsibility? Does it act as an alibi? Probably not. The point is not to justify every uncertainty, but to reframe the very idea of responsibility: if we are constantly evolving, then growing up is not a destination, but a process. And processes do not have an expiration date. Science is not telling us that we can put everything off forever, nor that every hesitation is automatically forgiven. But it does invite us to tone down the anxiety of completeness: that social pressure pushing us to always be high-performing, settled, and certain. As if hesitating were a failure and changing your mind a flaw. If our brain keeps developing until 32, then maybe we can allow ourselves the luxury of being incomplete without feeling inadequate.

What the new brain study tells us

The University of Cambridge study goes beyond simple scientific curiosity. By analyzing nearly 4,000 brains, from newborns to people in their nineties, researchers identified five major brain eras, separated by four “turning points.” One of the most significant occurs around the age of 32, a moment when neural connections stabilize, white matter becomes more structured, and the brain enters a state of relative coherence. This means that experiencing your twenties as a long testing phase - new cities, wrong relationships, careers restarted from scratch, shifting identities - is not just a generational trait. It is also a biological matter.

We are not late, we are becoming

Culturally, we grew up with the idea that “becoming an adult” follows a path made of predefined steps: a steady job, a home, a plan. And yet, for those between 25 and 35, reality looks very different. Life trajectories are less linear, timelines more stretched out, and paths more layered. Add to this the impact of social media, constantly showing us perfect, stable lives while we are still trying to figure out how to pay rent or which city feels most like us. The Cambridge study does not excuse the system, precarity, economic anxiety, hyper-competition, difficulty making decisions, but it does offer a different lens: we are not “behind,” we are simply still in the process of becoming.

If there is one thing this study teaches us, it is that the idea of a “right age” is probably a fragile and outdated social construct. Our generation grows in a more fluid, layered, less predictable way. And it is precisely in this unpredictability that a new form of maturity can be found: not being perfect, but being in motion. Maybe we never truly stop growing, and that is okay. It means we can keep surprising and reshaping ourselves. Even, and perhaps especially, after 30.