The COVID-19 pandemic has aged the brains of adolescents: girls have suffered the most. Results of the study

A new study shows that teenagers' brains have "aged" during the COVID-19 quarantine. Brain scans show that girls in particular have suffered from a loss of social interaction.

Researchers from the University of Washington have found that the quarantine, which entailed the closure of schools, the cancellation of sports events, and confinement within four walls, prematurely aged the brains of adolescents by as much as four years. According to the scientists, there was a disruption of daily life, which could contribute to behavioral problems, an increase in eating disorders, anxiety, and depression, NBCNews reports.

In 2018, scientists from the university's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) began an MRI study to see how the brain structure of 160 adolescents from Seattle (USA) developed over time. The teens were aged 9 to 19 years old.

Lead researcher Patricia Kuhl said that after COVID-19 quarantine measures began in 2020, they could not conduct brain scans until 2021. Therefore, the researchers shifted the focus of the study to find out how the quarantine measures affected the structure of the teenager's brain.

By measuring the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the experts found that the brains of adolescent boys aged prematurely by 1.4 years. However, the brain scans of girls showed accelerated aging by 4.2 years.

According to scientists, the cerebral cortex naturally thins with age. But during the three-year quarantine period between the first scan and the follow-up, there was much more thinning than the researchers expected.

The scientists emphasized that the aging was more pronounced in adolescent girls. The thinning was widespread in the female brain, occurring in 30 regions of both hemispheres and all lobes, as the scan showed. In men's brains, however, thinning was limited to only two areas, both in the occipital lobe, which affects distance and depth perception, face recognition, and memory.

Scientists suggest that the greater impact of pandemic stress on girls may be due to the difference in the importance of social interaction for young ladies and boys.

"When girls and women feel stressed, there's a natural reaction to get together and talk about it. And they release oxytocin and other neurotransmitters that make them feel better," said Ellen Rome, head of adolescent medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital.

According to researcher Patricia Kuhl, the study does not prove that quarantines have caused brain changes – mental disorders among children were on the rise even before Covid. However, it does suggest that cortical thinning may be associated with increased anxiety, depression, and other behavioral disorders.

Another brain scan study in 2022 by Stanford University showed similar changes in cortical thickness in adolescent brains during Covid restrictions. Researchers at Stanford University compared the stress and disruption caused by the pandemic to childhood traumas such as violence, neglect, and family dysfunction.

The pandemic has been a traumatic time for everyone, Kuhl said. However, for young people, who are experiencing intense changes in their emotional and behavioral development, isolation has been even more damaging to their emotional health.

Since 2021, several reports on youth mental health from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found unprecedented levels of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts among adolescent girls and boys during the pandemic.

The cortex cannot grow back and continues to shrink throughout life. It is still unclear whether the prematurely aged "pandemic brain" of young people may be at higher risk for disorders such as depression, and possibly even Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, said Patricia Kuhl.

Seattle mom Karin Zaugg Black, 54, has seen her two children affected by the pandemic while studying at a distance school for more than a year. Her daughter Delia, 14, was in seventh grade, and 10-year-old Sam was in fourth grade.

"When my daughter Delia recalls that time, she says: "Yes, it was really hard. I felt like I didn't have any friends," Black said of her 14-year-old daughter's time during the pandemic.

"Fortunately, children are resilient. And we can help them. But we also don't want to deceive ourselves that it was nothing. The quarantine has had a significant impact on their growth and development," summed up Dr. Jonathan Posner, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine.

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