Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team, which will launch its effort to save his life today, is likely to employ cutting-edge research on the brain development of young adults, two prominent experts said.

“In a developing brain, there’s one system that deals with reasoning and one system that deals with planning and decison-making,” said Ruben Gur, who assisted in the research of neuroscientists that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 to abolish the death penalty for criminals younger than 18. “Those two systems don’t get connected until three decades into life. Until then, the road that connects them is a rural highway, not a solid freeway.”

In its landmark decision in Roper v. Simmons, the court cited research that has found the brains of young adults undergo development throughout late adolescence.

Gur, author of “Brain Maturation and the Execution of Juveniles” and director of neuropsychology at the Brain Behavior Laboratory and the Center for Neuroimaging in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, argues there is “nothing particularly dramatic” that changes in the teen brain until the ages of 21 or 22.

Dzhokhar was 19 when he and his late older brother Tamerlan committed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

Tsarnaev’s attorneys have contended that his eagerness to please the radicalized Tamerlan drove him to take part in the terrorist attack.

The inability of youth to trust their own decisions is what drives them toward role models, Gur said.

“Because they know not to trust their decision-making capacity, they look for a leader to follow. They find guidance, they find a gang leader, a military commander … anything that takes away their having to make a decision.”

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett of Worcester, a psychology professor at Clark University whose work was cited in an amicus brief submitted by the American Medical Association in the Roper case, agreed Tsarnaev’s team has one likely defense to attempt to sway jurors:

“Neurological immaturity,” he said. “It’s not much.”

Arnett said he believes the chances of a 19-year-old prevailing with such a case are slim.

“By 19, there certainly is enough brain development for people to make reasonable judgments about what’s right and wrong,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that he knew what he was doing.”

Arnett said a more plausible defense might be one that focuses on social maturity, noting most teens are not mature enough to become president, marry “or to make a wise decision about a lot of things. And we don’t require them to be.”

Tsarnaev’s legal team is also expected to call on relatives to testify.

His family members are currently in an undisclosed location.