The stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the multi-year length of the lockdowns and lack of normal engagement with their peers and society at large, dramatically affected the brains of adolescents, a new study has found.
The results were alarming.
Comparisons between adolescents assessed in the years prior to the pandemic and those who were shaped by the pandemic revealed that of the 154 total adolescents studied—76 between 2016 and 2019 and 78 who went through the lockdowns between October 2020 and March 2022—gave saliva samples, as well as brain tests via MRI to study "reward processing" via a monetary incentive.
Interestingly, only one of the post-lockdown teens contracted COVID-19.
A test for cortisol production—an indicator of stress levels—revealed that they had been in a stressful experience, more so than teens tested pre-lockdown.
Also, the seemingly healthy post-lockdown teens showed evidence of elevated inflammation in the body, along with weakened immunity, signs that doctors would see in people with an infection or a chronic illness.
The study noted that the immune changes impacting the post-lockdown test subjects are cause for concern as these results could potentially lead to depression, cardiovascular problems, and a range of other health issues later in life.
Finally, the third area studied related to the adolescents' ability to make decisions, become motivated, and control emotion.
The results revealed that adolescents may have become less responsive to reward and less effective at regulating emotions after experiencing pandemic-related stress. However, the pre-and post-lockdown groups varied little when it came to the nucleus accumbens of the brain, a region of the organ that is involved in reward anticipation. Yuan's findings suggest that the effects of the lockdown were specific to certain portions of the regulation and reward processes of the brain.
Yuan added that the teen test subjects "looked biologically like people who have been exposed to significant early life stress or trauma." This surprised the scientist, as the time frame of two years was relatively short.
The study, which was titled "The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on neurobiological functioning in adolescents," mentioned that the test subjects were white and from higher income homes. That said, lower income teens, and those from non-white homes likely have added stress impacts, as those from said backgrounds often have higher stress levels than the teens studied in this post-pandemic stress test.