The covid pandemic had a particularly large effect on the ageing rate of adolescent girls’ brains metamorworks/Shutterstock
Adolescents showed signs of accelerated brain ageing during the covid-19 pandemic, with girls affected to a greater degree than boys. The finding suggests that lockdown measures had a disproportionately detrimental influence on adolescent brain development in girls.
As the brain develops, the outer layer of its largest region, called the cerebral cortex, begins to thin. Hardships in childhood, such as experiencing violence or neglect, accelerates the rate of this thinning, which…