Reacción a "Pandemic related isolation accelerated the brain maturation in adolescents, especially in girls"

Investigating the impact of the Covid pandemic on adolescent brain development is a worthy investigation. This study has however a number of limitations. Specifically, research on the adolescent brain have shown that longitudinal data (where the same child is followed over time) are needed to assess developmental trajectories, that there are individual differences related to pubertal development, and that females show earlier maturation (thinning) of cortical thickness. This PNAS study has a small sample size, developmental trajectories are assessed cross-sectionally, the age range is different for the model creation pre-Covid and in the post-Covid sample, and puberty is not taken into account. I think all these factors weaken the evidence for a specific link between the Covid pandemic and the observed accelerated thinning in female adolescents.