You didn't catch Covid, but your brain might have felt it anyway

India Today

a day ago

A new study led by experts at the University of Nottingham has uncovered evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic may have accelerated the ageing of people's brains, even among those who were never infected with the virus.The findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that the unprecedented stress, isolation, and social disruption of the pandemic have left a physical imprint on the brain.advertisementResearchers drew on detailed brain scans from nearly 1,000 healthy adults participating in the UK Biobank project. By comparing scans taken before and after the pandemic, and using sophisticated machine learning models, they estimated each person's 'brain age', a measure of how old a brain appears compared to the person's actual age.
The brain age model was trained on over 15,000 healthy individuals, providing a highly accurate baseline for comparison. The study found that, on average, the brains of people who lived through the pandemic aged 5.5 months faster for every chronological year, compared to those scanned entirely before the pandemic.Notably, the effect was more pronounced in older adults, men, and those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.Symptoms and ReversibilityWhile the study observed physical signs of accelerated brain ageing across the population, declines in cognitive abilities, such as mental flexibility and processing speed, were only seen in participants who had actually contracted Covid-19.This suggests that, although pandemic-related brain ageing was widespread, it may not always be accompanied by noticeable symptoms in those who did not get infected.Encouragingly, the researchers highlighted that these changes could be reversible. Professor Dorothee Auer, senior author on the study, said, 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment. The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought'. The study points to the importance of supporting mental and brain health during times of societal upheaval. Dr. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, lead author, noted, 'Even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates. It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health'.These findings open new avenues for public health research on the long-term consequences of global crises on the brain, and reinforce the need for targeted support for vulnerable groups.- EndsTrending Reel