r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Sep 09 '24

Neuroscience Covid lockdowns prematurely aged girls’ brains more than boys’, study finds. MRI scans found girls’ brains appeared 4.2 years older than expected after lockdowns, compared with 1.4 years for boys.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/sep/09/covid-lockdowns-prematurely-aged-girls-brains-more-than-boys-study-finds
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u/Worth-Slip3293 Sep 09 '24

As someone who works in education, I find this extremely fascinating because we noticed students acting so much younger and more immature after the lockdown period than ever before. High school freshmen were acting like middle schoolers, middle schoolers were acting like elementary school kids and so on.

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u/Jamesyoder14 Sep 09 '24

Well it did say that it aged their brains, not necessarily matured them. I say this because I've noticed the same trend in how immature kids have been relative to their age.

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u/fritzrits Sep 09 '24

Probably due to lack of socialization and being on technology. Similar to tablet kids and kids who actually have to socialize with parents and siblings vs big brother tablet. They never learn to cope with being bored and all that good stuff. Technology makes it so easy to get that dopamine high.