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/[deleted] Sep 09 '24

I would be willing to bet the farm that the novel coronavirus, not lockdowns, caused the drop in cognition.

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u/CoolNebula1906 Sep 10 '24

Idk why you would be so convinced that a long period of relative social isolation has not affected childrens brain development

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u/UnionThug456 Sep 10 '24

Schools where I live were closed for less than 6 weeks total and many of those weeks weren't consecutive. Many, many people around here disregarded the lockdowns when it came to their kids also. Even if the parents weren't going out, kids were hanging out with each other at each other's houses. Maybe more urban areas had "long periods" of social isolation but that definitely didn't happen where I live. I was far more isolated during the summers of my youth than the covid generation was during their school year.

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u/CoolNebula1906 Sep 11 '24

Less than six weeks total only because it happened at the end of a school year. It disrupted all sorts of structured activities such as soccer leagues, etc. Lots of things became "socially distanced". Maybe in Bumfuck Pennsylvania nobody observed these regulations but that is an exception to the rule. Cities are not an edge case to be disregarded, most people live in a major Metropolitan area or a city.