Teen brains aged faster than normal from stress by at least three years, a study has found. The study, published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, was the first to compare examinations of the physical structures of teenagers' brains from before and after the stress started, and to document significant differences.
Researchers knew teens had higher levels of depression, anxiety and fearfulness than before the stress. But we knew nothing about the effects on their brains. The researchers found growth in brain areas that control access to some memories and help control fear, stress and other emotions.
Premature aging of kids' brains isn't a positive development. Their stressful childhood experiences not only make people easier to suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses, they can raise the risk of cancer, heart disease and other long-term negative outcomes.
The scientists tried to make out how the stress itself may have impacted the physical structure of the children's brains and their mental health. They matched pairs of children with the same age, gender and stress. "That allowed us to compare 16-year olds before the stress with different 16-year olds assessed after the stress," said Ian Gotlib, a psychology professor at Stanford University.
To determine the brain age of their samples, the researchers fed their brain examinations into a machine-learning model for predicting brain age developed by the ENIGMA-Brain Age working group, a co-operation among scientists who share their brain image data sets. They also evaluated mental health outcomes reported by the matched pairs. They found more severe symptoms of anxiety, depression and internalizing(内在化的) problems in the group that had experienced the stress.
Dan Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, noted that many individuals experience post-traumatic(创伤后的) growth after a stressful experience. "This is a useful initial study," agreed David Fassler, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont. "I expect the results will inform the design of future research initiatives. "
