Latest news with #Mohammadi-Nejad
Los Angeles Times
20 hours ago
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Pandemic aged our brains faster, whether or not we got COVID, study says
By almost any measure, living through a once-in-a-century pandemic emergency that killed 7 million people — including 1.1 million in the U.S. alone — was a harrowing experience. Now, there's new evidence suggesting our brains bear the scars of that ordeal. Living through the pandemic aged our brains faster — even among people who never became sick with COVID-19, according to a recent study. 'Our study suggests that the experience of living through the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with slightly faster brain aging, even in people who were never infected with the virus,' the study's lead author, Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad of the University of Nottingham in England, wrote in an email to The Times. 'This effect was subtle but measurable,' he added. The study, published this month in the journal Nature Communications, wasn't designed to pinpoint the exact cause of the accelerated brain aging. 'But we believe the cumulative stressors of the pandemic — such as prolonged isolation, disrupted routines, reduced physical and cognitive activity, and economic uncertainty — likely contributed to the observed brain changes,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. Those factors are all known to influence brain health over time. As the study notes, 'it remains unclear whether these brain aging effects may be at least partially reversible.' Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-disease expert who wasn't affiliated with the study, said its findings demonstrate 'that even if you don't get infected, all the repercussions of the pandemic — like social isolation and stress — can have an impact on brain health.' 'We know that other things that we do have an impact on brain health, like exercise and diet and sleep,' Chin-Hong said. 'So it makes sense that something as global and as profound as a pandemic would have an impact on brain health.' Those effects don't necessarily include immediate decreased cognitive function, however. Although researchers documented accelerated aging in generally all the brain scans they studied, only those who contracted COVID-19 showed 'small but measurable declines in cognitive performance — mainly in processing speed and mental flexibility,' according to Mohammadi-Nejad. 'This suggests that infection may introduce additional biological effects, such as inflammation or vascular issues, that are more directly linked to cognitive symptoms,' he said. Past studies have noted cognitive effects after COVID-19 illness, especially in severe cases, he said. But what's new is that evidence of cognitive decline was found even in this study's population 'of generally healthy volunteers, most of whom had mild cases.' 'It shows that even mild infection can leave subtle traces in the brain, although the effect size is relatively small,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. The effect was especially pronounced among older people, the study found, 'suggesting a complex model of cognitive decline due to more pronounced accelerated brain aging from infection-related factors in older people.' The study was based on an analysis of brain scans from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database in the United Kingdom that contains health information from volunteers taken both before and after the onset of the pandemic. The study focused on a group of 996 participants and compared brain scans taken before and after the pandemic began. The group comprised primarily middle-aged and older people, ranging in age from 47 to 79. Only those who were generally healthy were included in the study, meaning they didn't have chronic illness such as heart disease, diabetes, dementia, kidney disease or major depression. In this group, scientists found the accelerated brain aging was seen more strongly overall in older people and men. People who were socioeconomically disadvantaged — ranking lower on indicators such as income, education, employment and health access — also had more pronounced brain aging, Mohammadi-Nejad said, 'likely due to increased exposure to pandemic-related stress and fewer resources to buffer its effects.' This isn't the first study to suggest brain health was altered by the experience of living through the pandemic. A study published last year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by scientists at the University of Washington, suggested that COVID-19 lockdown measures 'resulted in unusually accelerated brain maturation in adolescents' and was greater in magnitude in females than males. The authors of that study noted that 'females are at a higher risk for developing anxiety and mood disorders than males during typical adolescent development.' But among adults, past research has suggested 'men may be more susceptible to certain forms of brain aging,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. Other research, the study noted, has found 'greater male susceptibility to cortical atrophy and neuroinflammation under stress, which aligns with our findings of heightened pandemic-related brain aging in males.' There are a number of limitations to the study. The people participating in the study who had COVID-19 had mostly mild cases — and they were generally healthier than the population overall, since those with chronic illnesses were excluded. Among study participants who contracted COVID-19, fewer than 4% required hospitalization. The vast majority had mild illness; and all participants tested negative for COVID-19 within two to three weeks. Other factors also could contribute to the documented brain aging, including 'reduced physical activity, poorer diets and increased alcohol consumption' during the pandemic, the study said. Many unanswered questions remain. If further studies do prove the pandemic-related factors caused accelerated brain aging, rather than simply being associated with it, how long will those effects last? And, 'once you have it, can you do anything to make it better?' Chin-Hong asked. The study doesn't answer the question of whether the accelerated brain aging is reversible. But it is well known that there are things that are good for general brain health, Mohammadi-Nejad said: physical activity, mental stimulation, social interaction, healthy sleep and good nutrition among them. 'Public policies that reduce social isolation and ensure continued access to physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being during major disruptions could help mitigate future effects on brain health,' he said. For some, the study may raise the question of whether the pandemic-era response measures employed in Britain were worth the cost. But answering that question today — years after COVID ceased to be a novel public health threat — is complicated. 'Our study wasn't designed to evaluate public health policies or determine what should or shouldn't have been done. What we show is that the pandemic experience, independent of infection, was associated with changes in brain health,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. COVID-19 today is very different than the dark early period of the pandemic, when the disease devastated many families, prematurely killing grandparents and leaving children to grow up without their dad or mom. The death rate was much higher in the initial phase of the emergency, with hospitals in some areas overwhelmed with staggering numbers of critically ill people. The risk of getting long COVID, and suffering debilitating symptoms such as brain fog or persistent fatigue, was also once much higher than it is today. Early in the pandemic, 'it was a more serious time for COVID,' Chin-Hong said. 'It was a time when you didn't want to get infected at all.... Like, who would want to get Alpha or Delta, you know?' he added, referring to the variants that preceded Omicron. Today's version of COVID is 'less invasive — even independent of the fact that we have more immunity,' Chin-Hong said. The latest subvariants of the coronavirus don't 'get inside the body as much as the earlier variants.' Chin-Hong said he's glad there was a time early in the pandemic where 'we tried to avoid COVID as much as possible,' noting that infection itself has a chance of affecting the brain. That said, it's also clear that health issues such loneliness have a clear effect on brain health. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. surgeon general, issued an advisory on what he called a national epidemic of loneliness and isolation in 2023, and warned that loneliness is associated with a greater risk of dementia, depression, anxiety and premature death. About half of U.S. adults experienced loneliness even before the pandemic, according to Murthy's report, which urged the public to fight loneliness and isolation by taking steps to strengthen their relationships. The British government in 2018 found loneliness to be such a public health concern that it created a new position: minister of loneliness. The latest study underscores the idea that things such as exercise, sleep, diet, social connection and stress reduction are important for our brain health, according to Chin-Hong. Resolving stress and a lack of social connection 'is probably as important as ... focusing on things like blood pressure and the things we traditionally think about,' he said.
Gulf Insider
5 days ago
- Health
- Gulf Insider
COVID-19 Pandemic Accelerated Brain Aging Even In People Who Didn't Get Virus: Study
Brain aging appears to have accelerated by several months during the COVID-19 pandemic, even in people who did not get sick from the virus, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications on July 22, found that in 2021 and 2022, brain scans from a large UK database showed signs of aging, including brain shrinkage, even in individuals who were never infected. Although people who had a COVID-19 infection showed some declines in overall cognitive performance, the authors said that structural brain changes were seen across a larger population. They highlighted pandemic-related stressors, such as anxiety, social isolation, and economic and health insecurity, as possible reasons for the increase in brain aging. The research suggested that the pandemic may have also prematurely aged some individuals' brains by an average of 5.5 months, even among those who never contracted the virus. The impacts of the pandemic on the brain were most pronounced in men and people from 'deprived socio-demographic backgrounds,' the study said. The team analyzed brain scans collected from 15,334 healthy adults, with an average age of 63, in the UK Biobank—a long-term monitoring program—and then used machine-learning models to examine 'hundreds of structural features of the participants' brains, which taught the model how the brain looks at various ages,' the study's lead author, Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a researcher at the University of Nottingham, stated in a paper released alongside the study. After that, they applied the model to a group of 996 healthy UK Biobank participants who had two brain scans at least 'a couple of years apart,' he added. Some participants had one scan done before the pandemic and another following the onset of the pandemic, in early 2020, the study stated. 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates,' Mohammadi-Nejad said in a statement. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' The long-term impacts of the brain changes aren't clear, the team of researchers said, but they concluded that there is a need to 'address health and socio-economic inequalities in addition to lifestyle factors to mitigate accelerated brain ageing.' More research is also crucial to 'improve brain health outcomes in future public health crises,' they added. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an update several days ago that COVID-19 cases are rising in some parts of the United States, although the overall levels for the virus remain low. COVID-19 activity, the CDC said on July 18, is now increasing in some Southeast, Southern, and West Coast states. Citing wastewater data for COVID-19, the agency said that positive tests are increasing around the United States, while emergency department visits appear to be increasing among children aged 0 to 4. Wastewater detections for COVID-19 updated by the CDC suggest that high levels of the virus are being reported in California, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, and Texas. No states were experiencing very high levels, according to a map from the agency.
Time of India
24-07-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Neuro scans of adults in UK reveal faster ageing of brain post-pandemic
New Delhi: 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. According to the authors, the pandemic-related brain ageing "may be at least partially reversible", but being strongly linked with socio-economic deprivation, the policies addressing inequalities are urgently needed, given that existing gaps widened during this time. 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.
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- 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@
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First Post
23-07-2025
- Health
- First Post
Pandemic accelerated brain ageing by 5.5 months, but it may be partly reversible, says UK study
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 read more 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. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 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. According to the authors, the pandemic-related brain ageing 'may be at least partially reversible', but being strongly linked with socio-economic deprivation, the policies addressing inequalities are urgently needed, given that existing gaps widened during this time. 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. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD '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.
