Research shows that teens who have gone through confinement during the covid-19 pandemic are showing signs of premature aging.
This is according to a news report from The protectorAmerican scientists who performed MRI scans on 81 adolescents in the pre-pandemic United States, between November 2016 and November 2019, compared this data with that of 82 adolescents during the pandemic, between October 2020 and March 2022, in the Bay Area of California.
With this study, scientists discovered that there were physical changes in the brain during adolescence, more specifically in the cortex and the growth of the hippocampus and amygdala. The brains of teenagers studied are aging faster after the pandemic period.
“The difference in brain age was about three years — we didn’t expect such a big increase, given that the lockdown itself lasted less than a year,” said Ian Gotlib, a Stanford University psychology professor and first author of the study. , to the newspaper The guardian🇧🇷
The post-lockdown group of teens reported greater mental health problems, including more severe symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Michael Thomas, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Birkbeck University in London, who was not involved in the study, told the The protector that the study confirmed the struggles teens in particular have experienced during the pandemic, with increased anxiety and depression, but “it is highly speculative what the long-term consequences, if any, will be and whether these brain changes are permanent or disappear,” he said .
Source: DN
