An alarming study, coordinated by the University of Washington in Seattle and reported in the Italian press in recent days, shows that the COVID-19 lockdowns caused premature brain ageing in adolescents. SIR interviewed Dr Danilo Buonsenso, a paediatrician at the A. Gemelli Foundation University Hospital and PhD in Public Health.
Dr Buonsenso, what conclusions can be drawn from the Washington University research?
The research, published in PNAS, a respected scientific journal, indicates morphological changes in the cerebral cortex of a small group of young people who underwent MRI scans before the pandemic and repeated the same scan one or two years after the pandemic. However, the data collected cannot be projected to the global population because of the limited number of young people included in the research sample. In addition, the study acknowledges alterations in the mental health of adolescents during a certain period of time without investigating their cause-and-effect mechanisms. The paper published in PNAS explicitly refers to the lockdowns as a “possible” explanation for this structural damage to the central nervous system, but the research does not substantiate this correlation with scientific data. The authors only compared some MRI scans performed before and after the lockdown, without investigating what happened to these teens during the lockdown period. For example, I am thinking about how they were affected by the lockdown, what kind of physical or psychological stress they were exposed to. The authors of the study did not even consider whether the patients had contracted the virus. So it is safe to say that the study reports the observation of an event whose causes are not known.
The research suggests that traumatic events such as the COVID-19 pandemic can have serious consequences for adolescents…
The brain can respond to physical and psychological stress in the same way shown in the study; it’s a defence mechanism, and we don’t know if it’s reversible.
In the case of COVID-19, the long-term effects are not yet known, but similar research involving adults has shown – through biopsies and biomarkers – that the COVID-19 virus can induce ageing of the cerebral cortex in adults.
The media hype surrounding the US research is surprising, probably because it is a news story that is susceptible to instrumentalisation.
Do you think that the next few years will bring some unpleasant discoveries concerning the impact of COVID-19 on children and adolescents?
The Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome is among the world’s leading research centres recording the impact of COVID-19 in children and adolescents.
Researchers have been collecting data on the effects of long Covid, which is a multisystem inflammatory syndrome characterised by a variety of chronic disorders and syndromes that appear at the time of infection but can last for months or even years. These symptoms severely affect the daily lives of many young people and include chronic asthenia, headaches, tachycardia, musculoskeletal pain, memory loss and concentration problems. Some of these young people experience learning and interpersonal disorders.
There may well be unpleasant surprises in the future.
COVID-19 is endemic today, but its side effects should not be underestimated.
Moreover, we know that other viral infections such as measles, mononucleosis, respiratory syncytial virus, enteroviruses, herpes viruses, etc. frequently result in serious complications that appear many years after the infection. For example, measles causes a fatal, life-threatening subacute, intractable encephalitis that occurs three to four years after the onset of the disease. Mononucleosis is associated with the development of lymphoma and multiple sclerosis. COVID-19 is therefore a relatively new virus that has yet to be fully understood in its multifaceted manifestations.
