"We already know from global research that the pandemic has adversely affected mental health in youth, but we didn't know what, if anything, it was doing physically to their brains," said Ian Gotlib, the David Starr Jordan Professor of Psychology in the School of Humanities & Sciences, who is the first author on the paper.teenage years
By comparing MRI scans from a cohort of 163 children taken before and during the pandemic, Gotlib's study showed that this developmental process sped up in adolescents as they experienced the COVID-19 lockdowns. Until now, he says, these sorts of accelerated changes in"brain age" have appeared only in children who have experienced chronic adversity, whether from violence, neglect, family dysfunction, or a combination of multiple factors.
"It's also not clear if the changes are permanent," said Gotlib, who is also the director of the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology Laboratory at Stanford University."Will their chronological age eventually catch up to their 'brain age'? If their brain remains permanently older than their chronological age, it's unclear what the outcomes will be in the future.
These findings could have major implications for other longitudinal studies that have spanned the pandemic. If kids who experienced the pandemic show accelerated development in their brains, scientists will have to account for that abnormal rate of growth in any future research involving this generation.
physorg_com Yeah but it didn’t mature them