Effects transcend Corona epidemic Economic and health implications New research has revealed that the brains of adolescents who have experienced virus-related lockdowns show signs of premature aging.
The researchers compared MRI scans of 81 teenagers in the US before the pandemic, between November 2016 and November 2019, with 82 teens collected between October 2020 and March 2022, during the pandemic but after the lockdown was lifted.
changes in the brain
After matching 64 participants in each group for factors including age and gender, the team found that physical changes in the brain that occurred during adolescence, such as thinning of the cortex and growth of the hippocampus and amygdala, were greater in the post-lockdown period than in the pre-pandemic group, indicating an acceleration of such operations. In other words, their brains aged faster.
The team writes in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science that the participants, a sample of teens in the Bay Area, California, originally agreed to take part in a study looking at the impact of early life stress on mental health across adulthood. As a result, the participants were also assessed for symptoms of depression and anxiety.
The impact of the epidemic
While Ian Gottlieb, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and first author of the study, said the findings are consistent with those of other researchers studying the impact of the pandemic on adolescent mental health.
He added that “the deterioration in mental health is associated with physical changes in the brain in adolescents, and this is likely due to the pressures of the epidemic.”