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The unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly disrupted the lives of adolescents, particularly affecting their educational pursuits and socio-emotional growth.

A comprehensive study, drawing from nationwide data, sheds light on how the pre-existing wiring of adolescents' brains played a pivotal role in shaping their response to the pandemic, either rendering them more susceptible or resilient to its psychological toll.

Published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, the study, spearheaded by Caterina Stamoulis, Ph.D., director of the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory within the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital, underscores the potential of leveraging these insights to tailor behavioral interventions to target the brain circuits most impacted by the crisis.

Supported by the National Science Foundation, Stamoulis and research collaborator Linfeng Hu delved into functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from a cohort of 2,600 adolescents, with an average age of 12, collected approximately seven months prior to the onset of the pandemic. Notably, participants with known neuropsychiatric or neurodevelopmental conditions were excluded from the analysis.

During the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, spanning from May 2020 to May 2021, the adolescents underwent periodic surveys probing into their overall mental well-being. Stamoulis and Hu juxtaposed these self-reported responses with the fMRI data, unraveling intriguing correlations.

"We found that there were specific brain circuits whose organization could predict adolescents' survey responses," Stamoulis explained, per Neuroscience News.

Elevated robustness within the brain's "salience network," pivotal in modulating emotion, reward processing, and pain regulation, emerged as a harbinger of emotional fortitude amidst the crisis. Conversely, diminished connectivity and resilience within certain brain regions, notably the prefrontal cortex, were associated with heightened stress and melancholy.

"The prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped in early adolescence and is actively undergoing changes, making it especially vulnerable to external stressors," Stamoulis elucidates.

Furthermore, weakened connections within circuits involving the amygdala and thalamus, integral to emotional regulation, correlated with amplified stress and despondency. Similar trends were observed in circuits encompassing the basal ganglia and striatum, pivotal hubs in emotion processing, echoing the vulnerability of these structures during adolescence.

"By identifying the prefrontal cortex as a vulnerable area, and the salience network as vulnerable, we have established specific circuits we can follow over time," Stamoulis noted. "We know that these circuits support reward processing, emotional processing, pain, and motivating signals. Those functions could be targeted in designing behavioral therapies."