Here's exactly how the pandemic may have affected your teen's brain, says new study

New research indicates that the pandemic may have caused your teen's brain to age faster than would be expected – with girls affected more than boys.

The Covid-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event that affected the mental and physical health of many. from those left with lasting effects of Long Covid, to those who lost their jobs and livelihoods, nobody is likely to forget what is one of the most difficult times in recent history. 

Among the most affected by Covid were teenagers, who had some of their most important developmental and educational years interrupted by the pandemic. And now, a new study has indicated that it may have caused adolescent brains to age faster than usual. 

According to the study, published on Monday (9 September) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, girls’ brains aged 4.2 years faster on average, while boys’ brains aged an average of 1.4 years. 

“The findings are an important wake-up call about the fragility of the teenage brain,” explains senior study author, Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl. Speaking to CNN , she adds “Teens need our support now more than ever.”

The structure and function of the brain change a lot during adolescence, a time when people undergo a lot of changes socially and emotionally – becoming more independent, and making important future career decisions.

Originally, the researchers wanted to track adolescent brain development over time, first carrying out MRI scans on the participants in 2018. They’d planned to carry out further MRIs in 2020, but weren’t able to due to the pandemic – they only managed to do so three or four years later. 

They used the earlier MRI data to create a model of how the brain would develop over a ‘normal’ adolescence, to compare it to the findings from the second set of MRIs, to see if there were any differences. 

The study showed accelerated cortical thinning in the teenagers’ brains, with 43% of the girls’ brains and 6% of the boys’ brains affected respectively. The areas with the most thinning in girls have been linked to social and cognitive functions, while those in boys are linked to processing faces and objects in the visual field.

The authors believe, based on previous research, that the findings might be due to what’s known as the ‘stress acceleration hypothesis’ – that, in a high-stress environment, people may mature earlier to protect the brain’s emotional circuits and regions involved in learning and memory.

However, they didn’t have data on participants’ families, finances, or exercise, sleeping or dietary habits, and didn’t know whether the participants having had Covid (or not) might have contributed to the findings. 

Dr. Ian Gotlib, the author of a 2022 study on the subject and director of the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology Laboratory at Stanford University, told CNN, “Theirs is a good study, but even then it probably doesn’t have a large enough sample to say that the sex difference in brain ageing is a reliable finding.”

In related news, we ask teenagers what they wish their parents had done differently, and their answers are surprisingly candid, while here are 11 expert-led tips on how to talk to a teenager (even when they don’t want to listen). And if you’re confused by teenage slang, we share our meanings behind 123 terms your teen might use.