Adolescents who stopped studying maths exhibited greater disadvantage – compared with peers who continued studying maths – in terms of brain and cognitive development, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Unlike the majority of countries worldwide, in the UK 16-year-old students can decide to stop their maths education. This situation allowed the team to examine whether this specific lack of maths education in students coming from a similar environment could impact brain development and cognition. Notably, the researchers did not find differences in the brain chemical before the adolescents stopped studying maths. Sadly, the opportunity to stop studying maths at this age seems to lead to a gap between adolescents who stop their maths education compared to those who continue it.
