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Scientific American
2 hours ago
- Health
- Scientific American
The Pandemic Aged Everyone's Brain—Even in Healthy People
The brains of healthy people aged faster during the COVID-19 pandemic than did the brains of people analysed before the pandemic began, a study of almost 1,000 people suggests. The accelerated ageing occurred even in people who didn't become infected. The accelerated ageing, recorded as structural changes seen in brain scans, was most noticeable in older people, male participants and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. But cognitive tests revealed that mental agility declined only in participants who picked up a case of COVID-19, suggesting that faster brain ageing doesn't necessarily translate into impaired thinking and memory. The study 'really underlines how significant the pandemic environment was for mental and neurological health', says Mahdi Moqri, a computational biologist who studies ageing at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. It's unclear whether the pandemic-associated brain ageing is reversible, because the study analysed scans taken at only two time points, adds Moqri. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The findings were published today in Nature Communications. Pandemic effect Previous research has offered clues that SARS-CoV-2 infections can worsen neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in older people. But few studies have explored whether the pandemic period — a tumultuous time marked by social isolation, lifestyle disruptions and stress for many — also affected brain ageing, says study co-author Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a neuroimaging researcher at the University of Nottingham, UK. To find out, Mohammadi-Nejad and his colleagues analysed brain scans collected from 15,334 healthy adults with an average age of 63 years in the UK Biobank (UKBB) study, a long-term biomedical monitoring scheme. They trained machine-learning models on hundreds of structural features of the participants' brains, which taught the model how the brain looks at various ages. The team could then use these models to predict the age of a person's brain. The difference between that value and a participant's chronological age is the 'brain age gap'. The team then applied the brain-age models to a separate group of 996 healthy UKBB participants who had all had two brain scans at least a couple of years apart. Some of the participants had had one scan before the pandemic and another after the pandemic's onset. Those who'd had both scans before the pandemic were designated the control group. The models estimated each participant's brain age at the time of both scans. Nearly six months more The models predicted that the brains of people who had lived through the pandemic had aged 5.5 months faster on average than had those of people in the control group, irrespective of whether those scanned during the pandemic had ever contracted COVID-19. 'Brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment,' says Mohammadi-Nejad. Pandemic-related brain ageing was most pronounced among older participants and men, who are known to be more susceptible to neurological changes when they are stressed than women are. The brains of those experiencing hardship, such as unemployment, low income and poor health, also aged faster than did those of other participants, suggesting that these lifestyle stressors have a detrimental impact on brain health. Form and function Next, Mohammadi-Nejad and his colleagues assessed participants who had completed cognitive tests both times they were scanned. They found that only those who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection in the interval between the scans showed signs of cognitive decline, such as reduced mental flexibility and processing speed. This suggests that physical brain ageing might not have been severe enough to affect mental acuity during the pandemic. 'Some changes do not trigger symptoms, and some others take many years for any symptom to be manifested,' says Mohammadi-Nejad. Although the findings are 'compelling' evidence that brain ageing accelerated during the pandemic, more work needs to be done to investigate a causal link, says Agustín Ibáñez, a neuroscientist at the Adolfo Ibáñez University in Santiago. He adds that future studies should include data on factors such as mental health, isolation and lifestyle to clarify the mechanisms underlying the brain-ageing effect and how it plays out in people from different backgrounds. The next steps for Mohammadi-Nejad and his colleagues are to unravel some of these mechanisms and explore whether the effects are long-lasting.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Brain health 'detrimentally' affected during pandemic, study finds
THE Covid-19 pandemic was 'detrimental' to brain health, even among people who were never infected, a new study suggests. Academics suggest the strain on people's lives – from isolation for weeks on end to the uncertainty surrounding the crisis – may have aged the brains of the nation. They found that brain ageing during the pandemic was 'more pronounced' among men, older people and people from deprived backgrounds. The Covid pandemic of five years ago not only led to people losing their lives - in Carlisle, 515 people died with the virus [they had Covid on their death certificate] - but also prompted a series of societal lockdowns which have had long-term effects. In the new national study, brain ageing models were trained on more than 15,000 healthy people. These were then applied to almost 1,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank study – a long-term study tracking the health of middle and older aged adults. Half of the group had brain scans before the pandemic while the others had brain scans before and after the global crisis. After looking at the scans, academics said that the pandemic 'significantly' accelerated brain ageing. This was assessed by their brain age, as determined by the scans, compared with their actual age. The research team found that, on average, the scans taken after people had lived through the crisis had a '5.5-month higher deviation of brain age gap'. 'We found that the Covid-19 pandemic was detrimental to brain health and induced accelerated brain ageing… regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection,' the experts from the University of Nottingham wrote in the journal Nature Communications. Dr Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, who led the study, said: 'What surprised me most was that 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.' The research team also examined whether having Covid-19 affected someone's cognitive performance by examining the results of tests taken at the time of the scans. They found that people who were infected with the virus appeared to perform more poorly on cognitive tests when they were assessed again after the pandemic. Professor Dorothee Auer, professor of neuroimaging and senior author on the study, added: '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.'
News18
4 hours ago
- Health
- News18
Neuro scans of adults in UK reveal faster ageing of brain post-pandemic
Last Updated: New Delhi, Jul 23 (PTI) Experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated brain ageing by five and a half months, regardless of one's infection status, according to a new study, which researchers said point to the indirect effects of aspects such as isolation and uncertainty. The researchers, led by those from the University of Nottingham, analysed brain scans of adults in the UK taken before and after the pandemic. They found that changes were most noticeable among the brains of older individuals, men, and people from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those unemployed and having lower incomes or education. However, brain ageing was found to impact cognitive function, with 'brain fog' and difficulty in focussing being common symptoms, only in those who were infected with COVID-19, suggesting that brain ageing alone may not necessarily produce symptoms. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, highlight 'how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health," said lead researcher Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, research fellow at the university's faculty of medicine and health sciences. 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates," Mohammadi-Nejad added. AI-powered models which were used for predicting brain age were first trained on magnetic resonance image (MRI) brain scans of over 15,000 healthy people from the UK Biobank. The models thus learnt to measure the 'brain age gap' i.e. how much one's brain age differed from their actual age. The models were then employed to analyse two scans of the brains of 996 healthy participants, in 564 people (controls) both the scans were taken before the pandemic, while in the 'Pandemic' group consisting of 432 individuals, one scan was taken before and one after. 'The 'Pandemic' group shows on average (a) 5.5-month higher deviation of brain age gap at the second time point, compared with controls," the authors wrote. They also found that 'accelerated brain ageing is more pronounced in males and those from deprived socio-demographic backgrounds and these deviations exist regardless of SARS-CoV-2 (virus that causes COVID-19) infection." Further, cognitive tests taken at the time of both scans revealed that an 'accelerated brain ageing correlates with reduced cognitive performance only in COVID-infected participants." Senior author Dorothee Auer, professor of neuroimaging at the University of Nottingham, 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," Auer said. PTI KRS SHS NB view comments First Published: July 23, 2025, 16:15 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
COVID-19 Made Our Brains Age Faster
Credit - Yuichiro Chino—Getty Images COVID-19 is leaving all kinds of legacies on our health, both on our bodies and our brains. In a study published July 22 in Nature Communications, researchers report that living through the pandemic aged our brains—whether or not you were infected with COVID-19. To investigate COVID-19's impact on the brain, researchers looked at brain scans from 1,000 people during and before the pandemic. They compared these to brain scans from other people taken during "normal" times as a model for typical brain aging. Led by Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad from the University of Nottingham School of Medicine in the U.K., the researchers looked at measures like brain function, gray and white matter volume, a person's cognitive skills, and their chronological age. Gray matter is critical for memory, emotions, and movement, while white matter is essential for helping nerves transmit electrical signals. The pandemic-era brains aged about 5.5 months faster compared to the brains of those studied before the pandemic. The accelerated aging was documented in people who had COVID-19 infections as well as those who didn't, which strongly suggests that pandemic-related factors other than biological or virus-driven ones—like high stress—were also at work. In fact, the changes in gray and white matter were similar in people who were and were not infected. 'This finding was interesting and rather unexpected,' says Mohammadi-Nejad. Other studies have already shown that the COVID-19 virus can change the brain for the worse, but "we found that participants who simply lived through the pandemic period, regardless of infection, also showed signs of slightly accelerated brain aging. This highlights that the broader experience of the pandemic—including disruptions to daily life, stress, reduced social interactions, reduced activity, etc.,—may have had a measurable impact on brain health.' Read More: What to Know About the New COVID-19 Variant XFG The impact of the pandemic seemed to be greater in certain groups—notably men, the elderly, and people with more compromised health, lower educational status and income, or unstable housing. People with less stable employment had an average of five months of additional brain aging compared to those with higher employment status, while poorer health added about four months of increased brain age compared to better health. However, only people infected with COVID-19 showed drops in cognitive skills. But the fact that those who weren't infected during the pandemic also showed accelerated aging reflects the need to acknowledge the broader health effects of the pandemic beyond the obvious physical metrics on which doctors tend to focus. 'Brain health can be influenced by everyday life activities, and major societal disruptions—like those experienced during the pandemic—can leave a mark even in healthy individuals,' Mohammadi-Nejad says. 'This adds to our understanding of public health by reinforcing the importance of considering mental, cognitive, and social well-being alongside traditional physical health indicators during future crisis-response planning.' While the study did not explore specific ways to address brain aging, he says that strategies known to maintain brain health, such as a healthy diet, exercise, adequate sleep, and social and cognitive interactions are important, especially in the context of stressful circumstances such as a pandemic. 'Whether these can reverse the specific changes we observed remains to be studied,' he says. Contact us at letters@ Solve the daily Crossword
NBC News
19 hours ago
- Health
- NBC News
The pandemic aged our brains, whether we got Covid or not, study finds
Brain aging may have sped up during the pandemic, even in people who didn't get sick from Covid, a new study suggests. Using brain scans from a very large database, British researchers determined that during the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, people's brains showed signs of aging, including shrinkage, according to the report published in Nature Communications. People who got infected with the virus also showed deficits in certain cognitive abilities, such as processing speed and mental flexibility. The aging effect 'was most pronounced in males and those from more socioeconomically deprived backgrounds,' said the study's first author, Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a neuroimaging researcher at the University of Nottingham, via email. 'It highlights that brain health is not shaped solely by illness, but also by broader life experiences.' Overall, the researchers found a 5.5-month acceleration in aging associated with the pandemic. On average, the difference in brain aging between men and women was small, about 2.5 months. 'We don't yet know exactly why, but this fits with other research suggesting that men may be more affected by certain types of stress or health challenges,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. Brains shrink as people age. When gray matter shrinks prematurely, it can lead to memory loss or judgment problems, although the pandemic study doesn't show whether people with structural changes will eventually develop cognitive deficits. The study wasn't designed to pinpoint specific causes. 'But it is likely that the cumulative experience of the pandemic—including psychological stress, social isolation, disruptions in daily life, reduced activity and wellness—contributed to the observed changes,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. 'In this sense, the pandemic period itself appears to have left a mark on our brains, even in the absence of infection.' An earlier study on how teenagers' brains were affected by the pandemic discovered a similar result. The 2024 research from the University of Washington found that boys' brains had aged the equivalent of 1.4 years extra during the pandemic, while girls aged an extra 4.2 years. In the new study, Mohammadi-Nejad and his team turned to the UK Biobank, a massive database which launched in 2006, to determine whether the pandemic had any impact on people's brains. The database has been keeping track of anonymous health data from 500,000 volunteers who were recruited between 2006 and 2010, when the participants were between 40 to 69 years old. Thus far, the biobank has collected 100,000 whole body scans. To develop a baseline model of normal aging, to compare with what might have occurred during the pandemic years, the researchers used imaging data from 15,334 healthy individuals that had been collected prior to the pandemic. 'We used this large dataset to teach our model what typical, healthy brain ageing looks like across the adult lifespan,' Mohammadi-Nejad explained. Next the researchers turned to a group of 996 participants who had two scans, the second taking place on average 2.3 years after the first. Of these participants, 564 had both scans prior to the pandemic, which helped the artificial intelligence learn how the brain changes when there is no pandemic. The other 432 had a second scan after the start of the pandemic, mostly between 2021 and 2022, allowing the researchers to investigate how the pandemic might have affected brain aging. Although these second scans were done later in the pandemic, 'they reflect brain changes that likely happened during the height of the pandemic, when people experienced the most disruption,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. Other research has suggested that environmental factors might cause a person's brain to age prematurely. One study conducted in the Antarctic tied living in relative isolation to brain shrinkage. 'The most intriguing finding in this study is that only those who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 showed any cognitive deficits, despite structural aging,' said Jacqueline Becker, a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 'This speaks a little to the effects of the virus itself.' And that may eventually help explain syndromes, such as long Covid and chronic fatigue, she said. What we don't know from this study is whether the structural brain changes observed in people who didn't get Covid will amount to any observable changes in brain function, Becker said. Adam Brickman, a professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said the study is a compelling narrative, but 'still a hypothesis.' It doesn't show whether the accelerated aging seen in people who didn't get Covid will persist long term, said Brickman, who was not involved with the study. If the brain indeed was changed by the pandemic in meaningful ways, then people might counter those changes by doing things that are healthy for the brain, he said. 'We know that exercise is good for the brain and keeping blood pressure at a healthy level, for example. We know that sleep and social interactions are important.'
