Wise beyond

by Savy Behr graphics by Anika Kapan

Acompleteshutdown. Empty classrooms, students each separated by walls, and the threat of a contagious virus. We adapt to a drastically different life. The pandemic gradually slows down. Schools reopen, students are reintroduced to a strained sense of normalcy. Once again, we must regulate hormonally-altered emotions in one of the most tumultuous periods in a person’s life. We are back to navigating friendships, schoolwork, and just basic aspects of school like rule-following and time management.

which we already know cause negative cognitive changes.

The study consisted of 163 adolescents living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Initially, researchers were studying the effects of stress on psychobiology during puberty. Both brain-imaging technology and self-assessments were used. During the long-term study, it became clear that the pandemic had distinct effects on the brain functions being studied.

The post-pandemic group showed higher rates of severe internalizing mental health problems, reduced cortical thickness, larger hippocampal and amygdala volume. The physical changes signify advanced brain age. Reduced cortical thickness, a larger volume of certain brain parts, and accelerated brain maturation may not strike the general public as distinctly negative. Yet, these things are highly damaging in teens and are typically signs of trauma.

“We already know from global research that the pandemic has adversely affected mental health in youth, but we didn’t know what, if anything, it was doing physically to their brains,” Marjorie Mhoon Fair professor and director of the Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology (SNAP) Laboratory

The House is on Fire Stress Changes the Brain

Naturally, this transition isn’t easy. Students struggled to acclimate first to quarantine, then the return to normalcy. This was evident in our behavior. However, the changes that students’ brains have suffered are worse than initially thought, because, as a recent Stanford Medical study revealed, this damage is reflected in physical changes. In other words, psychobiological damage impacts adolescent behavior on a deeper level than simply “struggling to adjust.” The striking fact is that the post-pandemic world is new territory: a worldwide study on psychological damage with no possible control group.

The house is on fire. Teenagers’ social, emotional, and academic development is struggling post-pandemic. While efforts are being made by the Tamalpais High School administration to provide mental health support, many believe more could and should be done.

The pandemic caused rapid maturation of adolescents’ brains. The Stanford study, titled “Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Brain Maturation in Adolescents: Implications for Analyzing Longitudinal Data,” compared the results of stress from the pandemic to the proven impacts of “violence, neglect, and family dysfunction,” at Stanford University, Ian Gotlib, said. Gotlib is the first author of the study.

The field of stress research and especially its physiological effects is relatively very new. The earliest acknowledgement of stress in a scientific context was in the early 1900’s, when neurologist Walter Cannon first described the “fight or flight” response. In the study of an organ that, in many ways, remains a mystery, the Stanford study was crucial research.

“As a result of social isolation and distancing during the shut-down, virtually all youth experienced adversity in