An NIH study found that compared to a pre-pandemic grp, “adolescents assessed after the pandemic shutdowns reported ⬆️symptoms of anxiety & depression. Their brains showed thinning of the cortex, which helps execute mental processes like planning & self-control, & ⬇️volume in the hippocampus & amygdala, which are involved in accessing memories & regulating responses to fear & stress.”The post-shutdown group had older brain ages than pre-pandemic adol
@cbarbermd Very interesting that effects didn't seem to differ based on length of social distancing?
You nailed the issue I have with this paper right off the bat.
It's because their own data is not saying that "shutdowns" themselves had anything to do with the findings. This article has been kicking around for two months now and it keeps being brought up this way by anti-lockdown proponents, and the authors must have intended that by mentioning the word "shutdowns" multiple times in their introduction.
I've read the actual article a couple of times(linked below) and I'm struck that while they say "shutdowns" continually in the introduction, in the discussion they say things like:
"Rather, the pandemic appears to have altered adolescent mental health and neurodevelopment, at least in the short term, which will present a challenge for researchers in analyzing longitudinal data from studies of normative development that were interrupted by the pandemic."
Clearly stating that the change is "pandemic" related and not "shutdown" related. They really only seem to be using "shutdown" as a term to describe a point in time in which they assume that all kids knew they were living in a global pandemic.
Their own conclusion states:
"Conclusions
Thus, not only does the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have led to poorer mental health and accelerated brain aging in adolescents, but it also poses significant challenges to researchers analyzing data from longitudinal studies of normative development that were interrupted by the pandemic."
Doesn't even mention lockdowns or shutdowns.
The real headline to this paper should be "Kids are stressed living through a global pandemic"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667174322001422?via%3Dihub
