Various studies conducted before the covid-19 pandemic found that being exposed to adversity early in life (such as neglect, abuse, or family dysfunction) not only causes mental health issues, but that it also impacts the brain, causing accelerated brain maturation or aging.
Researchers at Stanford University (United States) wanted to know if the stress of the covid-19 pandemic had had the same deleterious effects on the brains of adolescents. And the answer to their study seems to be “yes”.
A brain 3 years older
For this study, the researchers recruited 163 adolescents (including 103 women) living in the San Francisco Bay Area who were participating in a larger longitudinal study evaluating the effects of early stress on psychobiology during puberty. The researchers studied the brain scans of 81 teenagers taken between November 2016 and November 2019 (i.e. before the pandemic), and compared them to the scans of 82 teenagers taken between October 2020 and March 2022 (i.e. during the pandemic). pandemic but after confinement).
Scans taken after the pandemic showed reduced thickness in the cortex, which controls the ability to perform tasks such as planning, attention and reasoning. Scans also showed growth in the amygdala, which regulates fear and stress, and the hippocampus, which controls access to memories. Changes “typical of people who are older or who have experienced significant adversity in childhood” explains Professor Ian Gotlib, professor of psychology at Stanford University and lead author of the study.
“The brain age difference was about three years – we didn’t expect such a big increase given the lockdown,” adds the doctor.
Source :Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Brain Maturation in Adolescents: Implications for Analyzing Longitudinal Data, Biological PsychiatryNovember 2022
