Under the pressure of the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic, Stanford research: adolescent brains age prematurely-News-Free Health Network

On May 15, 2020, a group of teenagers in Istanbul, Turkey, were able to go out for a few hours for the first time after staying at home for 42 days in the anti-epidemic blockade. (Associated Press file photo)

[Reporter Guan Shuping/Taipei Report]Stanford University in the United States published a research report on the 1st, pointing out that comparing the brains of adolescents before and during the outbreak of Wuhan pneumonia (new coronavirus disease, COVID-19), it was found that those who had experienced the global pandemic The brains of teenagers in the epidemic prevention and control blockage show signs of premature aging.

The British “Guardian” reported on the 1st that the researchers studied 81 teenagers in the United States before the outbreak, November 2016 and November 2019, and 82 teenagers during the outbreak period from October 2020 to March 2022. Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) done by humans, comparing the brain scan images of 64 people with the same factors such as age and gender, found that the physiological changes in the brain during adolescence, such as cortical thinning and growth of the hippocampus and amygdala, The adolescents in the epidemic group were all older than the pre-epidemic group, which means that the developmental stage of the brains of the former has accelerated, in other words, their brains have accelerated aging.

“The differences in brain aging About 3 years, given that the (anti-epidemic) lockdown was less than 1 year, we did not expect such a large increase.”

The research report pointed out that the object of the research analysis was a representative sample of adolescents in the California Bay Area. It was originally intended to study the impact of stress on mental health during adolescence, but later also assessed symptoms such as anxiety and worry. Epidemic groups self-reported experiencing greater mental health problems, including greater anxiety, worry, and internalization.

Golib said the study’s findings echo those of other studies looking at the impact of the pandemic on adolescent mental health. coming pressure.”

However, it is not clear whether the poorer mental health seen in the study is due to the faster aging of the brain, or whether premature brain aging in adolescents is a good or a bad thing. “In older adults, these brain changes are often associated with cognitive decline, but it’s not clear what that means in adolescents,” Golib said. But he said this is the first time that changes in the brain that appear to be related to stress have been shown to accompany mental health problems during the pandemic.

Michael Thomas, a cognitive neuroscientist at Berbeck College, University of London, who was not involved in the study, pointed out that the Stanford study confirmed that adolescents suffered from increased anxiety and depression during the epidemic, but it is still difficult to understand the size of the brain structure. the impact of differences in behavior on present or future behavior, and the impact is not necessarily negative.

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