Teenage brains age faster in first year of pandemic, stress may be to blame, study suggests
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the brains of American teens have undergone physiological changes and are aging faster than normal, according to a new study.
Younger study participants also reported higher levels of anxiety, depressive symptoms and so-called internalizing problems — meaning sadness, low self-esteem and anxiety, and difficulty regulating their emotions — after the first year of the pandemic. Dozens Teenagers’ mental health has suffered during the pandemic, a study finds. Pulled out of school and away from friends and trusted support agencies, they have had to live with the uncertainty and fear of coronavirus. Many parents lost their jobs. Millions of children have lost parents and grandparents to Covid-19.
The study, published Thursday in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, is one of the first to examine physiological changes in the brain caused by stress and anxiety.
The study follows a larger study in which scientists sought to understand gender differences in depression among adolescents.
Eight years ago, they started a program to scan 220 children ages 9 to 13 every two years with MRI scans. The team had completed two sets of scans when the pandemic stopped the study, and won’t be able to start scanning again until late 2020.
When their research was put on hold, the team decided it would be interesting to study the effects of such stressful events on children’s brain development. A pre-pandemic scan will help them compare.
The researchers compared children with the same demographic characteristics — including gender, age, stress levels and socioeconomic status.
To determine the average age of the brain, they put the MRI scans into a model that pooled data from other scans.
The researchers compared MRI scans of 128 children. Half of the scans were performed before the pandemic and the other half in late 2020.
Children who survived the first year of the pandemic had older brains, they found
The brains experienced at the start of the pandemic grew in an area that regulates anxiety and stress, called the amygdala, and in the hippocampus, an area of the brain that controls memory access. The part of the brain that controls executive function, the cortex, has thinned.
Children’s brains naturally change over time, but studies have found that these physical changes are accelerated when a person experiences significant adversity in childhood.
Research shows that people who experience violence, neglect, poverty and family problems early in life age faster and are more likely to experience mental health problems later in life.
Today’s youth are finally growing up in an era where mental health is no longer taboo, writes Dr. Neha Choudhury. Still, it can be hard to open up.
Supporting Your Child’s Mental Health Handbook
Ian Gotlib, lead author of the new study, said the research team wanted to find anxiety, depression and internalizing problems. “This epidemic is bad for teen mental health,” said Gottlieb, a professor of psychology at Stanford University.
But they’re not quite sure what an MRI scan will find.
“It’s always fun to do research like this when you’re not sure what’s going to happen,” Gotlib said. “These effects are interesting and happen fairly quickly.
“It was just a year-long shutdown, so we didn’t realize the effects on the brain would be so pronounced after this brief period of stress,” he added. “It goes with the mental health issues that we’re seeing.”
What’s unclear, he said, is whether the changes in the brain have consequences later in life. The team plans to scan the same children at a later date to track their brain development. It’s possible, he said, that the changes in her brain were just an immediate response to a stressor that returned to normal over time.
The team also plans to look at the 10 children in the study with Covid-19 to see if there are different effects. Physical differences appear to be “more pronounced” in children with Covid, Gotlib said.
Dr. Max Wiznitzer, director of pediatric neurology triage at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, said the changes in the brain are interesting, but what matters is whether the mental health problem persists.
“Anatomy doesn’t matter. What matters is function,” said Wiznitzer, who was not involved in the study. “The clinical implications here are functional impact, clinical mental health and how it works and how it’s managed.”
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With appropriate psychological interventions, problems such as anxiety or depression can be addressed. Adds Wiznitzer: “The brain has this ability to reorganize — or call it improvement.”
Gotlib wants parents and guardians to remember that while lockdowns and school closures may be over, the mental health effects are likely to linger.
“Make sure your child or teen gets all the help he or she needs when he or she is experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, or withdrawal.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the brains of American teens have undergone physiological changes and are aging faster than normal, according to a new study.
Younger study participants also reported higher levels of anxiety, depression and so-called inner problems — namely, sadness, low self-esteem and anxiety, and difficulty regulating emotions — after the first year of the pandemic.
Dozens of studies have found that teens’ mental health has suffered during the pandemic. Pulled out of school and away from friends and trusted support agencies, they have had to live with the uncertainty and fear of coronavirus. Many parents lost their jobs. Millions of children have lost parents and grandparents to COVID-19.
Younger study participants also reported higher levels of anxiety, depression and so-called inner problems — namely, sadness, low self-esteem and anxiety, and difficulty regulating emotions — after the first year of the pandemic.
Dozens of studies have found that teens’ mental health has suffered during the pandemic. Pulled out of school and away from friends and trusted support agencies, they have had to live with the uncertainty and fear of coronavirus. Many parents lost their jobs. Millions of children have lost parents and grandparents to COVID-19.