Pre-pandemic brain scans predicted mental health outcomes during pandemic

An examination of brain scans of adolescents taken before the pandemic was able to predict mental health outcomes during the pandemic, a study has found.

Adolescents whose brain scans showed stronger connections in the brain’s salience network, which is responsible for emotion and reward processing, demonstrated greater resilience to stress and negative emotions.

Those with weaker connections in the areas of the brain linked to emotional processing were more likely to experience stress and sadness during the pandemic.

The data came from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a US-based research study that is following brain development and child health over a number of years.

The researchers analysed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 2,600 adolescents averaging 12 years of age, collected an average of seven months before the pandemic. Then from May 2020 to May 2021, when Covid-19 was at its peak, the ABCD study surveyed the adolescents every two to three months about their overall mental health. The researchers then compared their responses with the fMRI data.

They found that stronger, better-organised connections between brain regions predicted better self-reported mental health. The research is published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

Caterina Stamoulis, head of the computational neuroscience laboratory in the division of adolescent and young adult medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, who carried out the research, said: “The prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped in early adolescence and is actively undergoing changes, making it especially vulnerable to external stressors.” She added: “We found that there were specific brain circuits whose organisation could predict adolescents’ survey responses.”

Lower connectivity and strength of circuits involving the amygdala and thalamus – both linked to emotional processing and regulation – also predicted more stress and sadness.

Findings were similar for circuits involving the basal ganglia and striatum, also linked to emotion processing. These structures and networks develop rapidly in 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,” says Stamoulis.

“We know that these circuits support reward processing, emotional processing, pain, and motivating signals. Those functions could be targeted in designing behavioural therapies.”

Poor mental health now the main reason for student absence

Could the pandemic have had a lasting impact on adolescent mental health? New data shows that mental health has become the primary cause of student absence in colleges.

According to a survey by the Association of Colleges (AoC), nearly nine in 10 colleges say that poor mental health is the main reason for absenteeism this year, an almost 40 percentage point jump from 2019. Half of the 68 colleges that responded also report that cost-of-living pressures are also forcing students to opt for paid work rather than go to class.

The AoC’s survey asked colleges to select the top three reasons for poor student attendance in the 2023 autumn term and compared the figures to 2019.

Most (88%) respondents selected poor mental health, a reason cited by only 50% before the pandemic.

FE Week, which reported the findings, spoke to college principals about the problem.

Andrew Cropley, the principal of West Notts College, told the publication: “Mental health absence is so much less predictable. We have a team of welfare support coaches who identify those learners with frequently lower attendance than we would want and work with them to understand what the barriers are and how we might help support them.”

College leaders said they had a growing responsibility to provide support to young people in crisis, following cuts to primary care and local authority budgets, and lengthy waits for NHS mental health services.

Catherine Sezen, the AoC’s director of education policy, told FE Week: “Without additional funding for mental health services in colleges, and cost of living support, colleges will be limited in what they can do to support students who are facing barriers to attendance.”