ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Inter-brain coupling tracks emotional co-regulation.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- Gut microbiota restructured by social isolation: Evidence for sex-specific response patterns.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Multi-Omics Reveals Dysregulated Neurotransmitter Systems in Aging and CNS Disorders.Aging cell · 2026Article
- Statistical Methods in Aging Research: Improving Current Practices and Embracing Emerging Approaches.Annual review of statistics and its application · 2026Article
- The influence of sample size and covariate distributions on neuroanatomical normative modeling.eLife · 2026Article
- Changes in white matter volume and cortical thickness predict internalizing symptoms during early adolescence.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Article
- Mendelian randomization analyses support causal relationships between COVID-19 and changes in brain structure and function.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- Hearing and early life adversity: effects of developmental stress on sensory processing.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on School-Based Scoliosis Screening Program in South Korea.Neurospine · 2025Article
- The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on neurobiological functioning in adolescents.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic policies on ADHD medication prescriptions among children and adolescents in Portugal.European journal of pediatrics · 2025Article
- Rapid antigen test based on gold nanoparticles embedded with highly sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering probes for detecting antigen concentrations below the visual detection limit.Mikrochimica acta · 2025Article
- Reply to Brown et al.: Significant sex differences in accelerated cortical thinning associated with the COVID-19 lockdowns.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- No compelling evidence of sex differences in brain maturation during COVID-19 lockdowns when the sexes are compared statistically.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Impression management in research reporting: When effects are not really as pronounced as claimed.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Reply to Fine et al. and Rippon: Significant sex differences in accelerated cortical thinning associated with the COVID-19 lockdowns.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Uncertainty of adolescent brain maturation sex difference claims.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Importance of Return to Usual and School Activities After Social Isolation in Recovering Vitamin D Concentrations, Physical Fitness, and Motor Performance in Adolescents.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Adolescence is a period of substantial social-emotional development, accompanied by dramatic changes to brain structure and function. Social isolation due to lockdowns that were imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic had a detrimental impact on adolescent mental health, with the mental health of females more affected than males. We assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns on adolescent brain structure with a focus on sex differences. We collected MRI structural data longitudinally from adolescents prior to and after the pandemic lockdowns. The pre-COVID data were used to create a normative model of cortical thickness change with age during typical adolescent development. Cortical thickness values in the post-COVID data were compared to this normative model. The analysis revealed accelerated cortical thinning in the post-COVID brain, which was more widespread throughout the brain and greater in magnitude in females than in males. When measured in terms of equivalent years of development, the mean acceleration was found to be 4.2 y in females and 1.4 y in males. Accelerated brain maturation as a result of chronic stress or adversity during development has been well documented. These findings suggest that the lifestyle disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns caused changes in brain biology and had a more severe impact on the female than the male brain.
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