COVID lockdowns affected adolescents’ brain structures, says research

By James Goodwin, Professor in the Physiology of Ageing, Loughborough University

A recent study reported the somewhat alarming observation that the social disruptions of COVID lockdowns caused significant changes in teenagers’ brains.

Using MRI data, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle showed that the usual, age-related thinning of the cortex – the folded surface – of the adolescent brain accelerated after the lockdowns and the effect was greater in the female brain than the male.

What are we to make of these findings?

Science shows the…

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