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A new investigation by a team from Stanford University in the United States ensures that the COVID- pandemic has not only worsened the mental health of adolescents, but also physically aged their brains.
The article published Thursday in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science , explains that the pandemic seriously affected the mental health of young people around the world , mainly due to the blockades and school closures that affected the emotional well-being of children and adolescents.
In addition, these new findings suggest that stressors related to pandemic have not only affected the mental health of adolescents, but have also physically altered their brains.
The damages, according to the analysis, affirm that the The brain structures of the minors appear several years older than those of their comparable peers before the pandemic.
Studies through magnetic resonances
The experiment consisted of comparing the magnetic resonances of 81 adolescents taken before the pandemic with those of 81 adolescents taken between October 1200 and March 2020, during the pandemic but after the lockdowns were lifted, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where all the teens were from.
They found that, compared to adolescents tested before the pandemic, Assessed after lockdown not only had more severe internalized mental health problems.
Unfortunately they found a reduced cortical thickness, a volume of the hypoca mpo and larger amygdala and older brain age. Which means that their brains had aged prematurely.
Until now, these kinds of accelerated changes in “brain age” have only appeared in children who have experienced chronic adversity, for example, from violence, neglect or family dysfunction, according to the researchers.
They explain that there is still a lot we don’t know about what these brain changes mean, or how permanent they might be for the adolescents tested in This studio.
However, adolescent brains are still elastic and their brains can adapt and change relatively easily. For this reason, it is important to see a doctor if parents observe very marked changes in their children’s behavior.
They plan to carry out a follow-up soon of their mental health and compare the brain structure of those who were infected with the virus with those who were not.
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