I mean, parents already kinda know this, but now Translational Psychiatry has studied (and is continuing to study) a group of teens from before the pandemic to now and found that the stress of the lockdown years had measurable effects on kids’ immune systems, inflammation responses, learning, and other neurobiological development that will be felt for years to come:
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns were an unprecedented source of stress, with striking adverse effects on adolescents’ mental health but relatively unknown effects on important aspects of neurobiological functioning. Using data from 154 adolescents (age M ± SD = 16.2 ± 1.1 years; range = 13.9–19.4) drawn from an ongoing longitudinal study and assessed either before or after the pandemic, we compared the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic groups on three key stress-sensitive biological systems: the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, immune response, and neural responses to affective stimuli. We found that compared to those assessed before the pandemic, adolescents assessed post-lockdown had significantly lower total cortisol production, elevated levels of systemic inflammation, and reduced neural activation in the prefrontal cortex during affective processing (pseudo-F(1,3250) = 7.43, p = 0.006). These findings suggest that, for adolescents, the experience of the pandemic was associated with significant disruptions in multiple biological systems that are sensitive to stress that might have enduring adverse developmental effects.…
Psychological stress can trigger inflammation in the same way a physical pathogen does; further, chronic stress is associated with persistently elevated levels of systemic inflammation [7, 8], which have been linked to a range of chronic illnesses [9]. Finally, these disruptions are associated with altered brain function, including communication between the brain and the endocrine and immune systems. Indeed, glucocorticoids have been found to affect brain areas critical for executive function, memory, and emotion processing, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, and amygdala [10]. These alterations have been linked to various forms of psychopathology, such as depression [11].
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Overall, the findings of this study indicate that adolescents who were assessed after the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns exhibit significant indicators of allostatic “wear and tear” compared to similar adolescents who were assessed before the pandemic. This is particularly concerning because these differences have been found to be associated with poorer health outcomes and, further, are occurring during a sensitive period of development. As a result of the pandemic, adolescents may now be at elevated risk for negative outcomes. While speculative, an important implication of these findings is that the developmental trajectories of adolescents following the COVID-19 pandemic may have diverged from the normative trajectories before the pandemic. This possibility is strengthened by the phenotypic similarity between post-COVID adolescents and youth who experienced significant stressors early in development. Understanding this “new normal” will be essential for developing targeted strategies to mitigate the impact of pandemic and its associated lockdowns on adolescents’ health and well-being.