How Her Brain Was [Literally] Shaped by Covid and What To Do About It

A new study, published in September, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the newest body of proof to help us comprehend the impact the world-wide Covid experience had on our sons and daughters.  This study, in my opinion, delivers the most palpable understanding for what we saw then and what we are still seeing today.   

What did the study say?

160 teens (50% female and 50% male) aged 9-19 brains were studied through MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) before (2018) and after the pandemic (2021).  Of course, the study did not originally start with this intent, unknowing of what was coming, and began as a means to study the brain changes during adolescence.  Once it was evident the students could not return for their scheduled scans in 2020, the data was shifted to a new focus…. How was this pandemic affecting the brains of teens?

They used the MRI to study the thickness of something called the cerebral cortex.  This is the outer layer of tissue in the brain which controls higher level functions like reasoning, processing, flexible thinking and decision-making.  This is an area that naturally thins with age and elevated stress but cannot regrow, so it is a concrete marker for brain aging.

The study discovered the brains of teen boys had prematurely aged 1.4 years.

The brain scans of the girls, however, showed accelerated aging of 4.2 years.

We all knew that the pandemic was stressful, but this was much more thinning than the researchers even expected, especially in teenage girls. The thinning was found to be widespread throughout the female brain, occurring in 30 regions across both hemispheres and all lobes.

Thankfully, in the teenage boys, the thinning was limited to only two regions, both in the occipital lobe, which affects distance and depth perception, face recognition and memory. 

A similar study published in Biological Psychiatry concluded that “youths assessed after the pandemic shutdowns had more severe internalizing mental health problems, reduced cortical thickness, larger hippocampal and amygdala volume, and more advanced brain age.”.  (the hippocampus is vital in emotional, memory and learning and the amygdala is a primitive fight or flight, instinctive part of the brain)

 (image courtesy of I-LBS)

(image courtesy of I-LBS)

So, these are the results of the study, but how can we use this knowledge in our lives and in our homes to help our children, especially our daughters who were so affected?

 1. How we need to approach her

My work at the 6570 Family Project is very intentionally centered at the intersection of biology, psychology, faith and culture because those are the 4 largest contributing factors that affect your child’s life and this study focuses on the biological evidence that elicits a psychological change in a child because of a world and cultural event. 

Dr. Ellen Rome, head of adolescent medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital said, “When girls and women are stressed, there is a natural response to get together and talk about it, and we release oxytocin and other neurotransmitters that make us feel better”.  This goes on to calm down our body systems and decreases cortisol levels which, for prolonged amounts of time, can be toxic to the brain at high levels.

When you see a behavior coming from your child it is the last stop on a long chain of complex biochemical reactions and decisions largely based on the 4 factors mentioned above.  It starts with processing the inner and outer world through thoughts, moving to feelings, then to decisions and finally manifesting the result into an outward behavior you see. 

If this weren’t complicated enough, they are adolescents and already have a massively under construction brain that has now been altered and aged on a global scale through an unexpected trauma that isolated them and halted their social growth and understanding.

What can you do?

• Understand: The more you know the better you can understand that they did truly go through something. You did too, yes… but you didn’t go through it with an adolescent brain, and I am sorry to tell you, but that is a whole different ballgame. 
• Give Grace: Giving grace is not enabling or not challenging them to become their best self. Do not confuse the two.  However, when you see overwhelm coming on board (larger amygdala and hippocampus volume and thinner cortex are all contributors) stay calm, give grace and reach for the tools you have found helpful for her.  Confusion, stubbornness, reasoning, slow in school work, high emotions, spastic decisions etc. can all be a result of these changes. 
• Empathize: You have been overwhelmed before.  You have made the wrong choice before.  You have been hurt, left out and lonely, had an inflated ego to cover pain, people pleased and numbed yourself with things that didn’t bring you true peace before.  Talk to her.  Empathize, bring clarity, build and guide.
• Reflect: Maybe you see something differently after reading this today. Have you seen occasional or frequent challenges with her reasoning, processing, flexible thinking and decision-making? These can be normal adolescent issues but know that they can be exaggerated because of changes to her brain.

During the pandemic we were homeschooling 3 of our 4 daughters and my oldest was just 6 months out of homeschooling and it had been a difficult first semester of [out of the home] high school, so I was glad to have her home again.  I thought, “we’ve got this!”.  It wasn’t a BIG change for us because we were all working and schooling from home anyway… but I was wrong.  This was a big change… a very big one.  The quiet in the world, the lack of friends to connect with during these incredibly pivotal years of social engagement, the constant state of fear and distance that plagued every interaction.  Looking back, knowing more, I see more.  I see more from then and I see more clearly the effects of then on today for my kids and all those I have worked with since.  I have some regrets.  I have some choices I wish I would have considered more or had more insight into, but I do know that I did the best I could with what I knew then and now I can do the best with what I know now.

 2. Have the conversations with her

I always recommend that every parent or leader have a one-on-one relationship with their students when possible and even a set aside time of engagement.  In our home this looks like Monday and Thursday nights when one parent sits down with one child and digests life.  In my small groups this looks like a conversation or text when I ask the questions and start discussions.

These are great opportunities to see where she is now, how she felt during the pandemic and what she thinks she may have missed out on.  She may not know (remember… under construction brain and she may not know what she never had depending on where in her adolescence this worldwide panic and pause button was hit).  You can kindly share some observations you have had generally from the world today or specifically to her and what you would like to see more of for her while exploring what she yearns for too.  An honest, genuine conversation about her and where she is today, how she got there, the disruptions that were out of her hands and where to go from here can be beautiful.  Hard, but beautiful.

 3. Build her together

Once you have those conversations you can start intentionally building together.  Experts who have referred to this study agree that our adolescents need to go through “social interactions and connections recovery”, but the means of this recovery will be a little different for every young woman. 

First, helping our daughters recognize that they need this, to whatever degree they do, is important, and EVERY child needs it if they haven’t gotten it already.  They are not alone, they are not weird, defective or broken.  The world went through a global event, and it literally changed her brain.  This is not something to ignore.

What can she do?  Consider joining a club, a class, a sport, a youth group, starting a program, maybe just saying hello to one more person in the hallway today.  As someone that influences her you can figure out what is best for her.  There are many things we do not know yet, but we do know we have to encourage new neural pathways of social connection to help compensate for the aged brains of Covid and we know it will take time, intention, healing, bravery, vulnerability and action.

This is one area of life we cannot take the “It is what it is” approach.  The pandemic created some rubble in our children on a biological and psychological level, but it is up to us to help them build something incredible out of it.

If your daughter has been experiencing those things mentioned above and was between the ages of 9-20 during the pandemic please watch Daughter Decoder and consider reaching out about Take The Lead!