A startling study released by researchers at the University of Washington found that the brains of many teens aged more rapidly during the COVID pandemic, with an especially devastating impact on teen girls.
The paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and found that the pandemic “resulted in unusually accelerated brain maturation in adults.”
The study found that COVID lockdowns and stay-at-home orders caused stress that aged teenage brains prematurely, with an especially outsized impact on girls.
According to researchers, the maturation acceleration occurred three times as quickly in girls, with a mean acceleration of 4.2 years, according to researchers.
“We think of the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis, but we know that it produced other profound changes in our lives, especially for teenagers,” Patricia Kuhl, senior author and co-director of UW’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, said.
According to the study, brain maturation is measured by the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which is the outer level of tissue in the brain. The cerebral cortex thins with age, but chronic stress and adversity can accelerate the process, leading to an increased risk for a variety of behavioral disorders.
The study found such thinning accelerated in teens during the pandemic, with stresses related to COVID contributing to the impacts.
According to researchers, the thinning of the cerebral cortex occurred all over the brain in scans of girls, but were only found near the occipital cortex in boys.
“If you look at the figures showing which brain areas are involved, in girl teens it’s all over the brain, both hemispheres, all lobes,” Kuhl told NBC Chicago’s Health and Wellness Reporter Lauren Petty. “In boys, it’s only occipital cortex, meaning a visual cortex, and two little areas.”
As for whether or not the aging could be reversed, Kuhl said it was highly unlikely, but that processes could slow with a reduction in stress.
“We don’t expect that the brains would get thicker again, because the biological process over time is it’s always going to thin,” she said. “Recovery might look like a slowdown in the rate of thinning, so that particularly for girls, with their social worlds coming back, the pandemic recedes, and we really feel that life is more back to normal, then you might expect to see that yes, there’s thinning, but it’s not quite as fast.”