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Lockdown isolation has led to brain aging in adolescents, which is more pronounced in girls: but for what reason?
The Covid pandemic and its lockdowns have caused young people’s brains to age prematurely and their structure to change. This has already been confirmed by several studies, but new work by scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle now reveals something more: namely, that aging occurs twice as quickly in girls.
Grown up too fast. As the brain develops, the cerebral cortex, its outermost layer, becomes thinner. Childhood traumas such as abandonment, abuse and neglect accelerate this process, causing the brain to age more quickly and increasing the risk of mental disorders.
Before and after Covid. For the new study, medical imaging neuroscientist Neva Corrigan compared brain scans of teenagers taken before and after the most difficult season of the pandemic. In 2018, the researcher and her team collected brain scans of young people aged 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 and used them to model the changes in the cortex between the ages of 9 and 17. In 2021, the team conducted brain scans of a separate population of adolescents (all from the Seattle area and of similar socioeconomic backgrounds) aged 12, 14 and 16.
Twice as big. Adolescent brains aged faster during the pandemic, but in comparison, girls’ brains aged faster: The cortical thinning appeared to correspond to four years of aging, compared to two years in the brains of male adolescents. In addition, a reduction in cortical thickness was observed in 35 brain regions in girls, but only in three in boys. In girls, those areas that were primarily responsible for analyzing visual information, especially faces, were involved in the process.
Why this difference? “Women rely much more heavily on their social network to build their personal identity and receive emotional support,” says Corrigan. “It may be that isolation during the pandemic has had a more damaging impact on female brains, simply because women are more likely to have peer relationships, which are so important for their brain development.”
A marked generation. The stress of the pandemic also appears to have had a neurological impact on children’s brain development – the effects of which on mental health are now exploding.
It is not clear whether the aging highlighted in the studies is permanent or whether it has somehow calmed down after the critical years of lockdowns and is – hopefully – waiting for a recovery as growth occurs.
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