Teen Brains Aged Prematurely Due to COVID-19 Lockdowns
The pandemic slashed social interactions for teenagers and led to anxiety, depression and stress — especially for girls.
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COVID-19 lockdowns prematurely aged teenagers’ brains by years — particularly for girls, reveals new research.
Restrictive rules imposed to try and stop the spread of the virus during the pandemic accelerated the brain development of teenage girls by an average of 4.2 years and 1.4 years in boys, according to the study.
Researchers believe girls suffered most because they felt particularly “isolated” from their friends during the pandemic.
The findings add to growing evidence that draconian lockdown measures – such as school closures – had a negative impact on the mental health of young people.
Scientists explained that adolescence is marked by dramatic changes in emotional, behavioral and social development.
It’s also a time when a sense of self-identity, self-confidence and self-control are developed.
However, the pandemic slashed social interactions for teenagers and led to anxiety, depression and stress – especially for girls.
The new research, published by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that the pandemic also resulted in “unusually accelerated” brain maturation in adolescents – with the effect more pronounced in teenage girls.
The cerebral cortex naturally thins with age, even in teens.
The research began in 2018 as a study of 160 youngsters aged between nine and 17, with the original objective of evaluating changes in brain structure during adolescence.
The participants were due to return in 2020, but the pandemic delayed the repeat tests until 2021.
By then, the researchers said that their original intent to study typical teen development was no longer viable.
Using the original 2018 data, the Washington researchers created a model of expected cortical thinning during the teenage years.
The team then re-examined the brains of the adolescents, more than 80% of whom returned for the second set of measurements.
They found that the teenagers’ brains showed a general effect of accelerated thinning across adolescence, but it was “much more pronounced” in girls.
The researchers said that the cortical thinning effects in females were seen all over the brain, in all lobes and both hemispheres.
But, in boys, the effects were only seen in the visual cortex.
Kuhl believes the greater impact on female brains as opposed to male brains could be due to differences in the importance of social interaction for girls compared to boys.
She says that teenage girls often rely more heavily on relationships with other girls, prioritizing the ability to gather, talk to each other and share feelings, while boys tend to gather for physical activity.
Originally published by Talker News