The COVID-19 Pandemic and its Not-So Unforgettable Effects
Anuja Thakare
The Science of the Forgotten: Hybrid Vigor 2022-2023 Edition
As everyone now knows all too well, the COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic changes in lives all over the globe. It is easy to focus on the changes that have caused an immediate effect, from the trivial cancellations of junior-senior proms to the profound policies of masking and social distancing. Only recently, however, has the general public begun to acknowledge the fact that COVID-19 has caused long-term effects on the masses. One may often overhear people complain about a lingering cough from “long covid” or gripe about certain foods that haven’t tasted the same since they were infected with the coronavirus over a year ago. Studying the physical long-term effects of the pandemic is important, but the mental long-term effects are unjustly overlooked, particularly the negative effects on memory.
According to Amir-Homayoun Javadi, a senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience and psychology at the University of Kent, “being in a global pandemic for the last two years is actually making it harder for our brains to make and recall memories.” He points toward the psychological phenomenon of habituation, in which the response or amount of attention paid to a stimulus begins to decline once the stimulus has become familiar; this attention that is lost is necessary for people’s brains to encode and consolidate memories. Simply put, Javadi believes that “getting too used to life” can negatively impact memory by causing a lack of attention to circumstances that have become too commonplace (Holcombe, 2022). It is easy to see how habituation could have occurred during quarantine; people lost the structure that work or school provided them, and the long stretches of time spent in their house, an unchanging environment, can cause the days to seemingly blend together. Neuroscientist Veronique Bohbot has found that if a person’s life becomes increasingly repetitive, their use of the hippocampus, a brain region
that is vital for learning and memory, declines and thus the volume of their hippocampus decreases (Hammond, 2022). Neurobiology professor Michael Yassa explains that acquiring a memory can be affected by the context of a circumstance, and it is not simply capturing the image of a moment in an objective manner (Holcombe, 2022).
Along with a lack of change in one’s daily routine, reduced physical activity can also adversely impact memory. When COVID-19 forced everyone to attend work or school from home while simultaneously shutting down any destinations to walk to, closing any gyms or recreation centers to visit, and providing significantly more opportunities for sedentary screen time, it follows that many people experienced a decrease in exercise. Research shows that areas of the brain associated with memory tend to have a greater volume in those who are physically active compared to those who are physically inactive. Dr. Scott McGinnis, a neurology instructor at Harvard Medical School, states that “engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions” (Exercise can boost your memory and thinking skills, 2021). Physical activity promotes processes such as decreasing inflammation and insulin resistance, as well as facilitating the making of growth factors, which are substances that maintain the health and growth of new cells and blood vessels in the brain (Exercise can boost your memory and thinking skills, 2021). Evidently, a sudden halt of daily exercise terminates several physiological activities that are beneficial for creating and storing memories.
An obvious and possibly the most significant consequence of a mass lockdown is social isolation. While many focus on the melancholy or boredom that results from not being able to interact face-to-face with friends or family, people rarely realize that social interactions are essential for the acquisition of memories and general cognitive function. Behavioral neurologist
Dr. Joel Salinas explains that "Some people were okay before the pandemic and now they're having faster cognitive decline… In studies of people, isolation is associated with an increased risk for dementia, although it's unclear how high the risk is. In lab animals, isolation has been shown to cause brain shrinkage and the kind of brain changes you'd see in Alzheimer's disease" (How isolation affects memory and thinking skills, 2021). Additionally, being familiar with basic psychological concepts, such as the acquisition and storage of memories, can allow people to understand how a sort of “memory loss” can be the result of practices in their daily lives. For example, imagine a scenario in which someone made a meal for themselves during lockdown and compare this scenario to a meal someone is making for their friends for a dinner party they are hosting at their house. In the former situation, the planning, preparation, and consumption of the meal are all done alone and are thus mundane, forgettable tasks. Furthermore, this process would likely feel repetitive during lockdown and very little brain activity is required to execute it. The latter scenario, however, is far from forgettable. The process of contacting friends to determine when free time is aligned in everyone’s schedule, the attention to detail during the meal preparation in order to provide an impressive feast, and the camaraderie and laughter shared at the table after the guests have arrived are all ideal circumstances for the encoding and consolidation of memories. In this perspective, it is evident that a lack of social interaction provides little opportunity for creating and storing new memories, which can eventually cause large gaps in people’s memories of the pandemic.
The sudden disruptions to school, work, or vacations, along with the fright of an unprecedented health crisis, resulted in increased stress levels for many during the pandemic. Many people are aware that high stress levels can cause detrimental health outcomes, but the effect of stress on memory is often overlooked. For example, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical releases glucocorticoids in response to stress, and these receptors bind to the hippocampus. If this binding is continuous as a result of chronic stress, the structure of the hippocampus can be damaged (Peavy, et al. 2009). Additionally, high amounts of cortisol (the primary hormone that the body releases when stressed) can have physically undesirable implications, such as high blood pressure and an increase in weight. However, increased stress levels can contribute to negative mental effects as well. This is because stress can cause the synapses located in the hippocampus (along with the prefrontal cortex, a brain region responsible for emotional regulation and decision making) to slowly degrade over time, impeding the function of these critical brain structures. Furthermore, an overabundance of cortisol can terminate the creation of new synapses and neurons and eliminate ones that already exist; thus, prolonged stress can actually “shrink” the brain (Stress and memory loss: What you need to know, 2015).
Overall, the seemingly inconsequential effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, such as the sameness of the days, lack of exercise, surge of loneliness, and increased stress levels can actually lead to significant cognitive decline in several aspects, particularly memory. These external negative factors, coupled with the “brain fog” that many people have described experiencing as a result of actually being infected with the coronavirus and suffering from “long COVID,” can seem concerning. However, as time moves on and people revert back to the social, active, and unpredictable lifestyles that embody the human experience, the collective memory gaps within the COVID-19 quarantine will hopefully be a phenomenon of the past that everyone can (intentionally) forget.
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