During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world took restrictive measures – such as lockdowns and school closures – to contain the spread of the respiratory disease. It is well known that this disruption to daily routines and social activities had a negative impact on young people’s mental health.
Accelerated Brain Maturation Due to the Pandemic
Adolescence, the transitional period between childhood and adulthood, is characterized by dramatic changes in emotional, behavioral and social development. It is also a time when a sense of self-identity, self-confidence and self-control develops. The pandemic reduced teenagers’ social interaction and led to documented reports of anxiety, depression and stress, especially in girls. New research from the University of Washington, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the pandemic also led to unusually accelerated brain maturation in adolescents.
This maturation was more pronounced in girls. Measured by the number of years of accelerated brain development, the average acceleration was 4.2 years in females and 1.4 years in males. “We think of the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis,” said Patricia Kuhl, lead author and co-director of the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS), “but we know that it has also caused other profound changes in our lives, especially in teenagers.”
Brain maturation is measured by the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of tissue in the brain. The cerebral cortex becomes thinner with age, even in teenagers. Chronic stress and adverse conditions are known to accelerate the thinning of the cerebral cortex, which is associated with an increased risk of developing neuropsychiatric and behavioral disorders. Many of these disorders, such as anxiety and depression, often occur during adolescence, with females at higher risk.
Effect Much More Pronounced in Female Adolescents
The UW research began in 2018 as a longitudinal study of 160 teenagers aged 9 to 17, the original aim of which was to investigate the changes in brain structure during typical adolescence. The cohort was due to return in 2020, but the pandemic delayed the repeat testing until 2021, at which point the original intention to study typical adolescent development was no longer feasible. Once the pandemic was underway, researchers began thinking about what brain measurements would allow them to assess what the pandemic had done to the brain.
What did it mean for teenagers to be at home and not in their social groups? Using the original 2018 data, the researchers created a model of the expected cortical thinning during the teenage years. They then re-examined the brains of the teenagers, over 80% of whom returned for the second set of measurements. The adolescents’ brains showed a general effect of accelerated thinning during adolescence, but it was much more pronounced in the female adolescents. The effects of cortical thinning were seen in females throughout the brain, in all lobes and in both hemispheres. In males, the effects were only observed in the visual cortex. The stronger effects on female brains compared to male brains could be due to the different importance of social interaction in girls and boys, according to Kuhl.
She added that female teenagers often rely more heavily on relationships with other girls and prioritize the opportunity to meet, talk and share feelings. Boys tend to get together for physical activities. Teenagers are under enormous pressure. When a global pandemic breaks out, their normal channels for stress relief are gone. They can no longer vent, but the social criticism and pressure remain through social media. What the pandemic really seems to have done is isolate girls. All teenagers have been isolated, but girls have suffered more. The impact on their brains is much more dramatic.
It’s unlikely that the cerebral cortex will thicken again, Kuhl said, but the potential for recovery could be in the form of slower thinning over time, after a return to normal social interactions and opportunities. Whether this is the case requires further investigation. In older people, measures of cognitive brain function, such as processing speed and the ability to perform typical tasks, correlate with the extent of cerebral cortex thinning. This type of data is not yet available for teenagers, Kuhl said, but this could be a starting point for future research.
Financial Stress Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic is Significantly Affecting the Mental Health of Teenagers
Many factors during the pandemic can impact mental health. Previous research has shown a link between pandemic-related loss of income, financial stress and depressive symptoms in adults. However, despite the ongoing global adolescent mental health crisis, there has been limited data on the impact of financial stress on adolescent mental health. However, financial stress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has also significantly impacted teen mental health and contributed to depressive symptoms, according to a study by researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The study, published in the journal The Lancet Regional Health — Americas, found that the impact was most pronounced among low-income adolescents, but also affected all income groups who were under financial stress due to loss of income.
The researchers not only wanted to establish a link between financial stress and depressive symptoms, but also to better understand the mechanisms by which loss of income contributes to poor mental health in adolescents. To this end, they analyzed longitudinal data to identify factors that mediate the pathway from pandemic-related household wage loss at the beginning of the pandemic to adolescents’ depressive symptoms one year later. They found that both adolescents’ subjective financial stress and family conflict contributed to adolescents’ poor mental health, suggesting that financial distress affects children and adolescents through a complex web of indirect pathways.