A stunning study released by researchers at the University of Washington has revealed that the brains of many teens are aging faster during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has had a particularly devastating impact on teenage girls.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the pandemic “resulted in an extraordinary acceleration of brain maturation in adults.”
Coronavirus lockdowns and stay-at-home orders are putting early stress on teens' brains, with a particularly big impact on girls, a study has found.
According to the researchers, the acceleration of maturation occurred at a rate three times faster in girls, with an average acceleration of 4.2 years.
“We think of the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis, but we know it has also brought profound changes to our lives, especially for teens,” said Patricia Cole, lead author and co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Wisconsin.
According to the study, brain maturity is measured by the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of tissue in the brain. The cerebral cortex shrinks with age, but chronic stress and adversity can speed up this process, increasing the risk of a variety of behavioral disorders.
The study found that this thinning accelerated in teens during the pandemic, with Covid-related stress contributing to the effects.
According to the researchers, the thinning of the cerebral cortex occurred throughout the brain in the girls' scans, but was found only near the occipital cortex in the boys.
“If you look at the numbers that show the brain regions involved, in teenage girls, they’re all over the brain, in both hemispheres, in all the lobes,” Cole told NBC Chicago health and wellness reporter Lauren Beatty. “In boys, they’re just in the occipital cortex, which is the visual cortex, and two small areas.”
As for whether or not the aging process can be reversed, Cole said it's highly unlikely, but the process may slow down as stress levels decrease.
“We don’t expect brains to get thicker again, because the biological process over time is that they will always be thin,” she said. “Recovery might look like a slowdown in the rate of thinning, so for girls in particular, as their social worlds come back, the pandemic eases, and we really feel like life is getting back to normal, then you might expect to see there’s a thinning, but it’s not quite as rapid.”
