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

I guess what I’m wondering is if the brain aging too quickly in a short amount of time causes some sort of deficit in executive functioning.

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u/CallYouGoodPet Sep 09 '24

This is a really interesting idea, particularly considering the whole "gifted child to mentally unwell/neurodivergent adult pipeline" trope. And how childhood trauma affects people as they age.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '24

On this topic what is neurodivergent? seems way more commonly talked about now than 10 yrs ago

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u/WildFemmeFatale Sep 10 '24

I think they mean to be referring to the fact that gifted children’s brains age more quickly and often times thereafter become mentally unwell adults

They’re not saying that these kids are neurodivergent

They’re referring to the brain phenomenon (highly common amongst neurodivergent people) where the added stress on the brain, that being nuerodivergent results in, again, ages the brain more

Similar to childhood trauma aging the brain in general as well (being ND commonly also results in trauma, hence the pipeline from A+ student to non functioning depressed adult)

I don’t blame you for being out of the loop, it’s sadly not talked about as much as it should be.