Why do humans grow slower than other animals?

Question

Why do we have to wait until we're about 20 years or so to be an adult while other animals are an adult after a year?

No ******* guesses.

Answer 1

If you compare to other organisms, they are not as complex as us. When I mean complex, I will talk about the brain first. BY age 20, your brain has completed its growth. The last structure to grow and make its final connections is the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is what distinguishes us from other organisms. The frontal lobe is involved with emotional control, judgement, analysis of stimuli, creaitivity (divergent thinking), talking with other organisms, motor movements and working memory (aka short term memory). Anyway, you can see how complex the frontal lobe is. The cortical regions ie: the temporal, occiptial, and the parietal are finished growing around very early age. The brain structures are similar to other organisms, maybe a little more complex, but function is still the same.

So this is why people say your an adult around 20-21 years old. The frontal lobe is finsihed making its connections with your limbic system, mid-brain, and cortical regions. This is another reason why tennagers do stupid actions is because the frontal lobe is not fully developed. The teenager cannot make the correct judgements due becuase the doral lateral pre-frontal cortex is not finished growing. This is still not a excuse for their actions.

For others organisms like dogs and cats and others, their pre-frontal cortex (PFC) is finished growing and hence not as complex. As you can see, the brain is what distinguishes us form other organisms.

Now the body of the human body is still similar to other organims, in a sense.

Good luck.