Research from the University of Washington revealed that COVID-19 lockdowns led to accelerated cortical thinning in adolescents, impacting brain development significantly.
This effect was more pronounced in females than males, raising concerns about long-term brain health. The study highlights the importance of social interactions during adolescence, a period critical for cognitive development and mental health, especially as social restrictions have exacerbated conditions like anxiety and depression among teenagers.
Impact of Lockdowns on Adolescent Brain Development
A recent study reported the somewhat alarming findings that the social disruptions of COVID-19 lockdowns caused significant changes in teenagers’ brains.
Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle used MRI scans to examine the adolescent brain’s cortex — the folded outer layer responsible for complex thinking. They discovered that the typical age-related thinning of the cortex accelerated after the lockdowns, with girls showing more pronounced changes than boys.
What do these findings mean?
Science highlights adolescence as a critical stage for brain development. Many typical teenage behaviors stem from the brain cortex still maturing. During this period, key developmental processes occur, including the thinning of the cortex, which helps the brain become more efficient and better organized.
Groundbreaking research published in 2022 provided the first evidence of a crucial window of brain “plasticity” — its ability to adapt — in the frontal brain region. This area is essential for functions such as decision-making, problem-solving, short-term memory, and managing social behavior.
Given the evidence of this sensitivity of brain development in adolescence, is it possible that the pandemic lockdowns really did accelerate harmful brain aging in teenagers? And how strong is the evidence that it was due to the lockdowns and not something else?
To answer the first question, we have to realize that aging and development are two sides of the same coin. They are inextricably linked. On the one hand, biological aging is the progressive decline in the function of the body’s cells, tissues, and systems. On the other, development is the process by which we reach maturity.
Adverse conditions at critical periods of our life, especially adolescence, are very likely to influence our aging trajectory. It is therefore plausible that the “accelerated maturation” of the teenage brain cortex is an age-related change that will affect the rate of brain aging throughout life.
So it seems there is an unpalatable and much more serious conclusion: the reported accelerated maturation – though serious enough – is not a one-off detriment. It may well set a trajectory of adverse brain aging way beyond adolescence.
The Role of Social Interaction in Brain Health
Now to the second question: the role, if any, of the lockdowns. One of the central pillars of brain health is “social cognition”: the capacity of the brain to interact socially with others. It has been embedded in our brains for 1.5 million years. It is not an optional add-on. It is fundamentally important. Interfere with it and potentially devastating health consequences result, particularly in adolescents who depend on social interaction for normal cognitive development.
At the same time, adolescence is also a period of the emergence of many neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety and depression, with younger females at a higher risk of developing anxiety and mood disorders than males.
Devastating Consequences
The socially restrictive lockdown measures appear to have had a substantial negative effect on the mental health of teenagers, especially girls, and the new study provides a potential underlying cause.
There is little doubt that the pandemic lockdowns resulted in devastating health consequences for many people. To the litany of evidence, we may now add a particularly grim finding – that the developmental brain biology of our precious teenage population has been damaged by these measures.
But perhaps the main message is that the wider effects of single-issue health policies should be considered more carefully. In the case of the known damaging effects of social isolation and loneliness on brain health, it’s not as if the evidence wasn’t there.
Written by James Goodwin, Professor in the Physiology of Ageing, Loughborough University.
Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation.
Reference: “COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males” by Neva M. Corrigan, Ariel Rokem and Patricia K. Kuhl, 9 September 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2403200121
News
Scientists Just Captured the Stunning Process That Shapes Chromosomes
Scientists at EMBL have captured how human chromosomes fold into their signature rod shape during cell division, using a groundbreaking method called LoopTrace. By observing overlapping DNA loops forming in high resolution, they revealed that large [...]
Bird Flu Virus Is Mutating Fast – Scientists Say Our Vaccines May Not Be Enough
H5N1 influenza is evolving rapidly, weakening the effectiveness of existing antibodies and increasing its potential threat to humans. Scientists at UNC Charlotte and MIT used high-performance computational modeling to analyze thousands of viral protein-antibody interactions, revealing [...]
Revolutionary Cancer Vaccine Targets All Solid Tumors
The method triggers immune responses that inhibit melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer, lung carcinoma, and ovarian cancer. Cancer treatment vaccines have been in development since 2010, when the first was approved for prostate cancer, followed [...]
Scientists Uncover Hidden Protein Driving Autoimmune Attacks
Scientists have uncovered a critical piece of the puzzle in autoimmune diseases: a protein that helps release immune response molecules. By studying an ultra-rare condition, researchers identified ArfGAP2 as a key player in immune [...]
Mediterranean neutrino observatory sets new limits on quantum gravity
Quantum gravity is the missing link between general relativity and quantum mechanics, the yet-to-be-discovered key to a unified theory capable of explaining both the infinitely large and the infinitely small. The solution to this [...]
Challenging Previous Beliefs: Japanese Scientists Discover Hidden Protector of Heart
A Japanese research team found that the oxidized form of glutathione (GSSG) may protect heart tissue by modifying a key protein, potentially offering a novel therapeutic approach for ischemic heart failure. A new study [...]
Millions May Have Long COVID – So Why Can’t They Get Diagnosed?
Millions of people in England may be living with Long Covid without even realizing it. A large-scale analysis found that nearly 10% suspect they might have the condition but remain uncertain, often due to [...]
Researchers Reveal What Happens to Your Brain When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep
What if poor sleep was doing more than just making you tired? Researchers have discovered that disrupted sleep in older adults interferes with the brain’s ability to clean out waste, leading to memory problems [...]
How to prevent chronic inflammation from zombie-like cells that accumulate with age
In humans and other multicellular organisms, cells multiply. This defining feature allows embryos to grow into adulthood, and enables the healing of the many bumps, bruises and scrapes along the way. Certain factors can [...]
Breakthrough for long Covid patients who lost sense of smell
A breakthrough nasal surgery has restored the sense of smell for a dozen long Covid patients. Experts at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust successfully employed a technique typically used for correcting blocked nasal passages, [...]
Scientists Invent Plastic That Can Dissolve In Seawater In Just A Few Hours
Plastic waste and pollution in the sea have been among the most serious environmental problems for decades, causing immense damage to marine life and ecosystems. However, a breakthrough discovery may offer a game-changing solution. [...]
Muscles from the 3D printer
Swiss researchers have developed a method for printing artificial muscles out of silicone. In the future, these could be used on both humans and robots. Swiss researchers have succeeded in printing artificial muscles out [...]
Beneficial genetic changes observed in regular blood donors
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have identified genetic changes in blood stem cells from frequent blood donors that support the production of new, non-cancerous cells. Understanding the differences in the mutations that accumulate [...]
Shocking Amounts of Microplastics in the Brain – It Could Be Increasing Our Risk of Dementia
The brain has higher concentrations of plastic particles compared to other organs, with increased levels found in dementia patients. In a comprehensive commentary published in Brain Medicine, researchers highlight alarming new evidence of microplastic accumulation [...]
Baffling Scientists for Centuries: New Study Unravels Mystery of Static Electricity
ISTA physicists demonstrate that contact electrification depends on the contact history of materials. For centuries, static electricity has intrigued and perplexed scientists. Now, researchers from the Waitukaitis group at the Institute of Science and [...]
Tumor “Stickiness” – Scientists Develop Potential New Way To Predict Cancer’s Spread
UC San Diego researchers have developed a device that predicts breast cancer aggressiveness by measuring tumor cell adhesion. Weakly adherent cells indicate a higher risk of metastasis, especially in early-stage DCIS. This innovation could [...]
