GS Paper - III

A study of adolescent brain development that tested children before and after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in the United States found that girls’ brains aged far faster than expected, something the researchers attributed to social isolation. The study from the University of Washington published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences measured cortical thinning, a process that starts in late childhood or early adolescence, as the brain begins to prune redundant synapses and shrink its outer layer. (‘COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males’: Neva M Corrigan et al.)

What are the findings?

• Scans taken in 2021, after shutdowns started to lift, showed that both boys and girls had experienced rapid cortical thinning during that period.
• But the effect was far more notable in girls, whose thinning had accelerated, on average, by 4.2 years ahead of what was expected; the thinning in boys’ brains had accelerated 1.4 years ahead of what was expected.
• The result suggests that “a girl who came in at 11, and then returned to the lab at age 14, now has a brain that looks like an 18-year-old’s,” according to study co-author Patricia K Kuhl.
• Kuhl attributed the change to “social deprivation caused by the pandemic,” which she suggested had hit adolescent girls harder because they are more dependent on social interaction — in particular, talking through problems with friends — as a way to release stress.
• There has been ample evidence of deterioration in the well-being of teenagers during the pandemic, but the study contributes something new to this discussion: physical evidence.
• Other researchers described the finding as striking, but cautioned against assuming that the accelerated cortical thinning is a sign of damage.
• Thinning is “not necessarily an indication of a problem,” and can be “a sign of maturational change,” said Ronald E Dahl of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley. “Accelerated thinning is being interpreted as problematic, and it could be, but that is a leap,” Dahl said.
• The researchers began with a cohort of 160 children and adolescents, with the goal of characterizing typical changes during the teenage years. They took their first measurements in 2018, when their subjects ranged in age from 9 to 17.