A recent study reported the somewhat alarming observation that the social disruptions of COVID lockdowns caused significant changes in teenagers’ brains.
This article was published by the Conversation.
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 critical importance of adolescence for the brain. The notoriously different behaviour of teenagers is due to a large degree to the immaturity of their brain cortex. During adolescence, substantial changes take place to enable the brain to reach maturity. One of these very important changes is the thinning of the cortex.
A breakthrough paper in 2022 delivered the first evidence that, in adolescence, there is a critical period of brain “plasticity” (malleability) in the frontal brain region – the area of the brain responsible for thinking, decision-making, short-term memory and control of social behaviour.
Given the evidence of this sensitivity of brain development in adolescence, is it possible that the pandemic lockdowns really did accelerate harmful brain ageing in teenagers? And how strong is the evidence that it was due to the lockdowns and not something else?
To answer the first question, we have to realise that ageing and development are two sides of the same coin. They are inextricably linked. On the one hand, biological ageing is the progressive decline in the function of the body’s cells, tissues and systems. On the other, development is the process by which we reach maturity.
Adverse conditions at critical periods of our life, especially adolescence, are very likely to influence our ageing trajectory. It is therefore plausible that the “accelerated maturation” of the teenage brain cortex is an age-related change that will affect the rate of brain ageing throughout life.
So it seems there is an unpalatable and much more serious conclusion: the reported accelerated maturation – though serious enough – is not a one-off detriment. It may well set a trajectory of adverse brain ageing way beyond adolescence.
Now to the second question: the role, if any, of the lockdowns...
Professor James Goodwin, an expert in the physiology of ageing, discusses a study that found COVID lockdowns affected adolescents’ brain structures in a new Conversation article.
Read the article in full on the Conversation website.
Notes for editors
Press release reference number: 24/203
Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.
It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme and named the best university in the world for sports-related subjects in the 2024 QS World University Rankings – the eighth year running.
Loughborough is ranked 6th in The UK Complete University Guide 2025, 10th in the Guardian University League Table 2025 and 10th in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025.
Loughborough was also named University of the Year for Sport in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025 - the fourth time it has been awarded the prestigious title.
Loughborough is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’, and in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 over 90% of its research was rated as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally-excellent’. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes.
The Loughborough University London campus is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities. It is home to influential thought leaders, pioneering researchers and creative innovators who provide students with the highest quality of teaching and the very latest in modern thinking.
