A new study has found that Covid lockdown measures resulted in “unusually accelerated brain maturation in adolescents” – and warned that “since accelerated brain maturation has been associated with increased risk for the development of neuropsychiatric and behavioral disorders” the findings highlighted “the importance of providing ongoing monitoring and support to individuals who were adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic”.
The study, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the US, also found that “this accelerated maturation was much more pronounced in females than in males”.
The study concluded that the findings indicate ‘greater vulnerability of the female brain, as compared to the male brain, to the lifestyle changes resulting from the pandemic lockdowns.’
“The analysis revealed accelerated cortical thinning in the post-COVID brain, which was more widespread throughout the brain and greater in magnitude in females than in males. When measured in terms of equivalent years of development, the mean acceleration was found to be 4.2 y in females and 1.4 y in males,” the authors wrote.
“Accelerated brain maturation as a result of chronic stress or adversity during development has been well documented. These findings suggest that the lifestyle disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns caused changes in brain biology and had a more severe impact on the female than the male brain,” they said.
The researchers collected MRI scan data from adolescents prior to and after the pandemic lockdowns. The pre-COVID data were then used to create a normative model ‘of cortical thickness change with age during typical adolescent development.’ Cortical thickness values in the post-COVID data were compared to this normative model.
The analysis revealed an alarmingly accelerated ‘cortical thinning in the post-COVID brain, which was more widespread throughout the brain and greater in magnitude in females than in males.
When measured in terms of equivalent years of development, the mean acceleration was found to be 4.2 yrs. in females and 1.4 yrs. in males.’
The authors claim the significance of this news study differs from previous well-documented research on the impact of chronic stress or adversity by demonstrating how lifestyle disruptions specifically associated with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns caused structural changes in brain biology that have had a more severe impact on the female than the male brain.
In their discussion of the investigation the authors says cortical thinning was found to be widespread throughout the female brain, occurring in 30 brain regions across both hemispheres and all lobes of the brain, but was found to be limited to only two regions in the male brain.
The study further notes that while these regions are involved in many cognitive functions, ‘one commonality is that they have all been linked to social cognition.’
Impacted areas of the brain include those most associated with recognising and processing faces and facial expressions, allowing for appropriate interactions in a social environment, the processing of social and emotional experiences, as well as in empathy and compassion while other impacted areas play a role in language comprehension which is critical for communication in all settings, including social interactions:
The full study ‘COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males’ can be accessed here.