Lockdowns Prematurely Aged Brains of Teenage Girls Much More Than Boys’, MRI Scans Show

 

How the hell does a woman’s brain “age”?

Women peak in mental development at the age of 11. Until a woman dies of old age, she has the mental acuity of an 11-year-old girl.

The Guardian:

Adolescent girls who lived through Covid lockdowns experienced more rapid brain ageing than boys, according to data that suggests the social restrictions had a disproportionate impact on them.

MRI scans found evidence of premature brain ageing in both boys and girls, but girls’ brains appeared on average 4.2 years older than expected after lockdowns, compared with 1.4 years older for boys.

It is unclear whether the changes have negative consequences, but the findings have raised concerns that they might affect adolescents’ mental health and potential to learn.

We were shocked by these data, that the difference is so dramatic,” said Prof Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

Just say “this data.”

That’s the way everyone talks. Just say it the normal way. Damn it. Say it normally.

The researchers gathered MRI scans from 160 nine- to 17-year-olds in 2018 and used them to build a model of how the brain’s cortex normally thins during school years. Some cortical thinning is natural and an important part of brain maturation and specialisation in adolescence.

The team revisited the same cohort in 2021 and 2022, after lockdowns, and collected further MRI scans from those aged 12 to 16. Compared with pre-pandemic brain development, these showed signs of accelerated cortical thinning in one area of the boys’ brains, and in 30 of the girls’ brains, across both hemispheres and all lobes.

More studies are needed to see whether the brain ageing affects cognitive performance, but Kuhl notes that premature cortical thinning is linked to early life adversity and a greater risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. Cortical thinning is crucial for the brain to specialise, but that comes with a loss of cognitive flexibility that could potentially affect learning.

Oh, so they’re developing degenerative brain disease or something?

I don’t really understand what this means.

But yeah, the lockdowns definitely crushed an entire generation of kids.

It’s a shame, but regardless, billions must die, so it doesn’t really matter.