On May 15, 2020, a group of teenagers in Istanbul, Turkey were allowed to go out for the first time for a few hours after staying at home for 42 days in the anti-epidemic lockdown. (Archive photo from the Associated Press)
[Reporter Guan Shuping/Taipei Report]Stanford University in the United States released a research report on the 1st, pointing out that by comparing the brains of adolescents before and during the outbreak of Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19), it was found that those who had experienced the global pandemic The brains of adolescents in the epidemic prevention and control blockade show signs of premature aging.
The British “Guardian” reported the 1st that researchers studied 81 adolescents in the United States before the outbreak, November 2016 and November 2019, and 82 adolescents during the period of the epidemic from October 2020 to March 2022. Brain Magnetic Resonance Human Imaging (MRI), comparing brain scan images of 64 people with the same factors such as age and gender, found that physiological changes in the brain during adolescence, such as cortical thinning and growth of the hippocampus and amygdala, The adolescents in the epidemic group were all older than the pre-epidemic group, which means that the former’s brain development stage is accelerated, in other words, their brains have accelerated aging.
“The differences in brain aging Approximately 3 years, given that the (anti-epidemic) lockdown has been less than 1 year, we did not expect such a large increase.”
The research report highlighted that the subject of the research analysis was a representative sample of adolescents in the California Bay Area. It was originally intended to study the impact of stress on mental health during adolescence, but later also evaluated symptoms such as anxiety and worry . Epidemic groups reported experiencing greater mental health problems, including increased anxiety, worry, and internalization.
Golib said the study’s findings echo those of other studies looking at the impact of the pandemic on adolescent mental health.
However, it’s not clear whether the worse mental health observed in the study is due to faster brain aging or whether premature brain aging in adolescents is good or bad. “In older adults, these brain changes are often associated with cognitive decline, but it’s not clear what that means in adolescents,” Golib said. But he said this is the first time changes in the brain that appear to be related to stress have been shown to accompany mental health problems during the pandemic.
Michael Thomas, a cognitive neuroscientist at Berbeck College, University of London, who was not involved in the study, pointed out that the Stanford study confirmed that teenagers suffered from increased anxiety and depression during the outbreak, but it is still difficult to understand the size of brain structure the impact of behavior differences on present or future behavior, and the impact is not necessarily negative.
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