The Scars COVID-19 Left on Children... Their Brains Aged 3 Years More

Stanford University Psychology Researchers Analyze Brain MRI
"Aging at Least 3 Years in Just 1 Year... Future Changes Unpredictable"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] A study has found that the brains of teenagers aged faster than normal due to stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the 1st (local time), according to foreign media such as The Washington Post and The Guardian, researchers from the Department of Psychology at Stanford University in the United States obtained these results by conducting brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on teenagers living in the Bay Area, California.

The original goal of this study, led by Professor Ian Gottlieb of Stanford University's Department of Psychology, was to identify gender differences in adolescent depression. Accordingly, the research team began a longitudinal study eight years ago and recruited 220 children aged 9 to 13 who would undergo brain MRI scans every two years.

However, during the time for the third scan, all face-to-face research was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the researchers could not collect brain scan data from March to December 2020. Consequently, the research team shifted the focus of the study to investigate how the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic affected the physical structure of teenagers' brains and their mental health.

They paired participants of the same age and gender, grouping those with similar puberty stages, socioeconomic status, and exposure to childhood stress. This was to compare 16-year-olds before the pandemic with different 16-year-olds after the pandemic.

The results were surprising. Teenagers who experienced the pandemic lockdown showed signs of accelerated brain aging compared to previous teenagers who did not experience the lockdown, such as thinning of the cerebral cortex and enlargement of the hippocampus and amygdala.

Professor Gottlieb said, "The brain age difference between the two groups was at least three years," adding, "Considering the COVID-19 lockdown lasted only 10 months, less than a year, we did not expect such a large difference."

The stress caused by the pandemic lockdown aged teenagers' brains at least three years earlier, similar to changes observed in adolescents who have experienced chronic stress and adversity.

Regarding these results, Professor Gottlieb stated, "This suggests serious mental health issues among adolescents related to the COVID-19 pandemic," and added, "Just because the shutdown is over does not mean we are okay." Previous studies have shown that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal impulses, and other mental illnesses among adolescents have dramatically increased.

The researchers acknowledged that it is still unknown whether the physical changes in teenagers' brains will persist in the future. They plan to continue collecting data on study participants by conducting another series of brain scans two years later. The results of this study were published in the latest issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science.