Accelerated maturation of brain circuits and executive function in adolescents who experienced the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overview

1. Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
2. Institute on Human Development and Disability, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
3. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
4. eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
5. Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many aspects of daily life. Previous studies have suggested that these disruptions altered the trajectory of typical adolescent gray matter development. This study examined whether development of white matter and of executive function (EF), measured behaviorally, were similarly affected. Diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) and EF measurements were collected at two timepoints: pre-pandemic and post-lockdown. Mean diffusivity and fractional anisotropy were calculated from the dMRI data. Normative models calculated from a pre-pandemic adolescent sample were used to assess deviations from typical development in a separate post-lockdown sample from the same participant cohort. Several white matter pathways showed accelerated development post-lockdown, and the acceleration was greater in females than in males. Post-lockdown performance on EF tasks also showed accelerated development. These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with both accelerated white matter maturation and accelerated EF performance.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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The data for this study and the code used in the analysis are available upon request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, pages, dates, 5 authors, 5 keywords, 1 funder, 98 references.

Cite

This paper

Corrigan, N. M., Huber, E., Rokem, A., Zhao, T. C., & Kuhl, P. K. (2026). Accelerated maturation of brain circuits and executive function in adolescents who experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.), 4, IMAG.a.1307. https://doi.org/10.1162/imag.a.1307

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