Covid lockdowns changed the adolescent brain

The Covid-19 lockdowns had a host of unexpected financial and cultural consequences—but they also affected the ageing of the brains of adolescents.

The brains of young teenagers aged prematurely during the various lockdowns, researchers from the University of Washington have discovered.

The ageing meant that the cortical cortex—the outer layer of the tissue in the brain—started to thin rapidly, and before it should; although it naturally thins, the process does not usually start so early in life.

Thinning can be brought on prematurely through chronic stress and adversity—as experienced during lockdown—and it raises the risk for neuro-psychiatric and behavioural disorders, such as anxiety and depression.

The researchers monitored the brains of 160 adolescents, who were aged between nine and 17 at the start of the study in 2018.  They were able to detect changes in their brains in 2021 compared to scans taken three years earlier and before the Covid pandemic.

Most of the brains showed premature thinning, and this was accelerated in females, whose cortical thinning was seen across all regions of the brain.  This may be because women are more dependent on social interaction and relationship for brain development, and this was impossible during the lockdowns, the researchers say.

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