“Being locked up during the coronavirus”… Female students’ brains aged 3 times faster?

A study has found that lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have caused adolescent brains to age more quickly, especially in young girls.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that female students’ brains appeared to be on average 4.2 years older than expected after the COVID-19 lockdown, while male students’ brains appeared to be 1.4 years older.

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) analyzed brain structure changes during adolescence in 160 adolescents aged 9 to 17. In particular, they looked at changes in the outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, which is known to thin as we age. Chronic stress and negative life events are known to accelerate cortical thinning, which is associated with an increased risk of mental health disorders, especially in young women.

The researchers created a model showing the predicted trajectory of cortical thinning in adolescents using the participants’ first brain scan in 2018. They then compared it to how the brains actually changed over the three years using a second brain scan in 2021.

The study found that, on average, the adolescent brains showed significantly accelerated cortical thinning, with the effect being particularly pronounced in girls. Boys showed cortical thinning only in the visual cortex, while girls showed thinning throughout their brains. Specifically, across both hemispheres and all lobes, boys showed accelerated cortical thinning in one region of their brains, while girls showed accelerated thinning in 30 regions of their brains. The researchers explained that “the gender difference may be due to differences in how girls and boys are socialized and the social stress they may experience due to social media,” and “Although adolescents may show some reversibility, such as a slowing rate of thinning over time, their cerebral cortex is unlikely to thicken again.”

“What the pandemic really did was isolate girls,” said study author Dr Patricia Cool. “All teens were isolated, but girls suffered more. It had a much more dramatic effect on their brains.” More research is needed to determine if the lockdown itself was directly responsible for these effects, but this study will help us understand the vulnerability of the teenage brain, Cool added.