I was a bit out of date, but thanks for the article, it was helpful. It’s a journalism piece interpreting multiple scientific studies, though, not a study. If you check the sources on the multiple actual studies they are referencing in it you will notice many of those studies observed that development and “maturity”, whatever that qualifies as, continues into your 30’s on average, the age of 25 is a pretty ambiguous marker for anything in the information provided from studies and there is no evidence that there is any kind of universal rate for everyone as far as what age your grey matter starts to decline in development, but the curve is well over 25. I still stand on my opinion that autonomy should be respected well before you’re 25.

The research didn’t continue after the participants reached the age of 25, the study was ended. We only have data up to that point, there hasn’t been a similar study done that kept the research and observations conducted past the age of 25. We only have information from one study that brought the gathered information to that point, we don’t know how the brain continues to develop from beyond that point. To me, that doesn’t translate to brain development stops at 25, it just means we only have collected data from one study that documented the first 25 years of brain development and activity of its research participants, we can’t say we know what the path of brain development is after that because we simply don’t have the data.

This isn’t true. The study you are referring to was simply funded to that point in time and there has not been a repeat study or any sort of extended work on that front, that’s simply when the study stopped. The more likely explanation is that your brain never stops developing. Also, the concept of child and adult are constructs, at some point we are old enough to think and act on our own and there is no universal marker for that change in rationality and behavior or any bar for where that divide line is drawn. The idea that people shouldn’t be allowed to practice autonomy until 25 is just coddling and absurd.