According a new study from the Stanford University and published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science revealed that “pandemic-related stressors have physically altered adolescents’ brains, making their brain structures appear several years older than the brains of comparable peers before the pandemic”.

In a news release, the University said “The brains of adolescents who were assessed after the pandemic shutdowns ended appeared several years older than those of teens who were assessed before the pandemic”.

The pandemic is a global phenomenon – there’s no one who hasn’t experienced it. There’s no real control group.

– Dr. Ian Gotlib, Stadford University in a news release

Ian Gotlib, the Marjorie Mhoon Fair Professor of Psychology in the School of Humanities & Sciences, the first author of the paper, said “We already know from global research that the pandemic has adversely affected mental health in youth, but we didn’t know what, if anything, it was doing physically to their brains.”

“It’s also not clear if the changes are permanent. Will their chronological age eventually catch up to their ‘brain age’? If their brain remains permanently older than their chronological age, it’s unclear what the outcomes will be in the future. For a 70- or 80-year-old, you’d expect some cognitive and memory problems based on changes in the brain, but what does it mean for a 16-year-old if their brains are aging prematurely?,” told Dr. Gotlib, who is also the director of the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology (SNAP) Laboratory at Stanford University.

Dr. Jonas Miller, co-author of the paper who worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Gotlib’s lab, added “Adolescence is already a period of rapid reorganization in the brain, and it’s already linked to increased rates of mental health problems, depression, and risk-taking behavior. Now you have this global event that’s happening, where everyone is experiencing some kind of adversity in the form of disruption to their daily routines – so it might be the case that the brains of kids who are 16 or 17 today are not comparable to those of their counterparts just a few years ago.”