The human brain is not a hard-wired machine but a malleable organ that is regularly re-shaping itself.
Neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK and the University of Pittsburgh in the US have now identified four major turning points in brain wiring between birth and death.
Like chapters of our lives, each of these neurological 'epochs' marks a new era of development or decline.
"Looking back, many of us feel our lives have been characterized by different phases," says senior author and neuroinformaticist Duncan Astle from Cambridge.
"It turns out that brains also go through