Latest news with #brainaging
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Brains Aged Faster In 2021–2022: What Did The Pandemic Do To Us?
A new study suggests that the pandemic may have had a significant impact on our brains, whether or not we contracted COVID-19. Leveraging an extensive database of brain scans, British researchers say that people's brains showed accelerated aging during 2021 and 2022, including signs of shrinkage. While people who were infected with COVID also showed cognitive decline, like slower processing speed, the study was notable because it said even the non-infected were likely to experience harm to their brain. While the study did not delve into the exact causes of the accelerated aging, the study's first author, Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a neuroimaging researcher at the University of Nottingham, theorizes that it may have been the result of stress and other factors. '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… In this sense, the pandemic period itself appears to have left a mark on our brains, even in the absence of infection,' said Mohammadi-Nejad, per NBC. The researchers found that males and 'those from more socioeconomically deprived backgrounds' experienced the most significant brain aging. Overall, the pandemic was thought to be linked to a 5.5-month acceleration in the aging process. This is not the first time researchers have reached similar conclusions. Last year, a previous study found that teenagers experienced dramatic brain aging during the pandemic. Notably, the study suggested that girls' brains aged 4.2 years faster and boys' brains aged 1.3 years faster, on average. The latest study does not indicate whether the structural changes identified in individuals who have never contracted COVID will result in any noticeable changes in brain function. Nor does the study confirm whether the physical changes will persist over the long term, says Adam Brickman, a professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who was not involved in the study.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The Pandemic May Have Made Your Brain Age Faster — Whether or Not You Got COVID
A new study found that the COVID-19 pandemic, not the disease itself, may be linked to faster brain aging. The study, published by Nature Communications on Tuesday, July 22, found that the time when the COVID-19 pandemic dominated daily life was linked to what appeared to be accelerated brain aging. However, the study emphasized, brain aging isn't necessarily linked to decreased cognitive ability, whereas actually contracting the disease does bear that link. The study examined nearly 1,000 people's brains and divided them into two groups. The "control group" underwent two MRI scans, both conducted before the pandemic gained traction in early 2020. A second group, named the "pandemic group," did one MRI scan prior to the pandemic and one after the pandemic's initial onset. Findings from both groups were then compared against an existing set of data featuring over 15,000 healthy participants' imaging. This comparison served to show the gap between predicted brain age (based on the brain's physical state) and chronological age (based on the participant's real age). Researchers found that even in subjects' brains that bore virtually no difference between predicted and chronological brain age, after the pandemic, the gap increased — regardless of COVID-19 infection. The average gap increase was 5.5 months, which was deemed statistically significant. Participants averaged an age of 63 and did not have any significant chronic conditions, "to maintain consistency in health status across all subjects," the study read. The study found that those most significantly affected by the pandemic in terms of brain age were men and elderly people, especially those who are at a socioeconomic disadvantage. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. However, a large brain age gap isn't necessarily linked to cognitive decline, the study found — marks of impacted cognitive ability were found only in participants who were infected. "Our study highlights the pandemic's significant impact on brain health, beyond direct infection effects, emphasising the need to consider broader social and health inequalities," the study stated. Read the original article on People
Medscape
7 days ago
- Health
- Medscape
COVID-19 Pandemic Tied to Accelerated Brain Aging
The COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated brain aging, even among people who avoided becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, new research suggested. By comparing longitudinal brain scans from healthy adults, researchers found that the average person's brain appeared to age by nearly 6 months for every year lived during the pandemic. 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had COVID showed significant increases in brain aging rates,' lead author Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, PhD, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, 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,' Mohammadi-Nejad said. The study was published online on July 22 in Nature Communications . UK Biobank Data In addition to the well-documented respiratory and systemic manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection, compelling evidence has highlighted the ability of the virus to attack the central nervous system. Studies have shown high rates of fatigue, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and cognitive impairment in COVID-19 survivors. Research has also revealed potential associations between COVID-19, cognitive decline, brain changes, and the molecular signatures of brain aging. Mohammadi-Nejad and colleagues investigated the pandemic's impact on brain aging using longitudinal brain MRI data from 996 healthy adults participating in the UK Biobank study. Some participants had scans before and after the pandemic (the pandemic group); others, only before the pandemic (control group). They used advanced imaging and machine learning to estimate each person's 'brain age'— how old their brain appeared to be compared to their actual age. They used brain scans from 15,334 healthy individuals to develop a brain age model. Results showed that even with initially matched brain age gaps (predicted brain age vs chronological age) and matched for a range of health markers, the pandemic significantly accelerated brain aging. On average, the pandemic group showed a 5.5-month higher deviation of brain age gap at the second timepoint compared with the control group. In the pandemic group, increased brain age correlated with lower scores on standard cognitive tests, which might help explain why some people who had COVID-19 have shown impaired cognition, researchers said. Accelerated brain aging was more pronounced in males and those from deprived socio-demographic backgrounds and these deviations existed regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection. 'Our findings provide valuable insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic affected brain health, demonstrating that the general pandemic effects alone, without infection, exerted a substantial detrimental effect on brain health, augmented by biosocial factors (age, health, and social inequalities) in a healthy middle-aged to older population,' the investigators note. 'Notably, the extent of accelerated brain aging over a matched pre-pandemic control group, observed in grey and white matter, was similar in both noninfected and infected sub-cohorts,' they noted. Interpret Cautiously In a statement from the UK nonprofit Science Media Center several experts weighed in on the results. 'While this is a very carefully conducted analysis, we have to be cautious with interpretation,' said Masud Husain, DPhil, BMBCh, FMedSci, professor of neurology & cognitive neuroscience, University of Oxford, Oxford, England. 'The brain age difference between the two groups (as indexed by brain scanning) was on average only 5 months, and difference in cognitive performance between groups was only on the total time taken to complete one of the tests. Is this really going to make a significant difference in everyday life?' Husain wondered. 'Furthermore, the time between scans was much shorter in the people scanned before and after the pandemic compared to those who had both scans before the pandemic. We therefore don't know if brain aging would have recovered if more time elapsed,' Husain said. Maxime Taquet, MBBCh, PhD, associate professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, said, 'It is important to note that the majority of people showed brain aging at the expected rate.' Nonetheless, Taquet said the findings raise 'important questions about the long-term neurological impact of the pandemic, whether due to infection itself or the broader psychological and social stress it caused.' Eugene Duff, PhD, Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, England, cautioned that 'as an observational study it is not possible to fully exclude that factors unrelated to the pandemic could contribute to the observed acceleration. 'While the events of the pandemic were exceptional, this work demonstrates the stark effects that the conditions of an individual's life may have on brain and cognitive health, and the value of careful dissection of the myriad of local and global factors contributing to these conditions.'
Yahoo
7 days 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
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
'Old' brains increase risk of death, Alzheimer's, study says
July 10 (UPI) -- They say age is all in your mind -- and that might literally be true, a new study reveals. People with "young" brains -- brains aging more slowly than their actual age -- are much less likely to die or develop Alzheimer's disease than those with "old" brains suffering from accelerated aging, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature Medicine. Results show that having an extremely aged brain nearly triples a person's risk of dying during a roughly 15-year period. At the same time, people with extremely youthful brains had a 40% lower risk of early death, researchers found. In other words, the biological age of the brain plays an outsized role in determining how long a person has left to live, said senior researcher Tony Wyss-Coray, director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford Medicine. "The brain is the gatekeeper of longevity," he said. "If you've got an old brain, you have an increased likelihood of mortality. If you've got a young brain, you're probably going to live longer." Previous research has shown that a person's body can age from wear-and-tear more rapidly that what is reflected by their birth date. Essentially, a person's biological age can be older than their calendar age. For this study, researchers analyzed blood samples from nearly 44,500 people 40 to 70 participating in the UK Biobank, a large-scale health research project in the United Kingdom. Researchers used proteins found in the blood samples to estimate the biological age of 11 distinct organs or organ systems for each person, including the brain. About 6% to 7% of participants had "extremely youthful" brains, and a similar proportion had "extremely aged" brains. Overall, researchers found that any organ's biological age increased its likelihood of disease. For example, an extremely aged heart increased risk of abnormal heart rhythm or heart failure, and aged lungs increased COPD risk. But the association between an aged brain and Alzheimer's was particularly powerful - more than three times that of a person with a normally aging brain, researchers said. On the other hand, people with youthful brains had a quarter of the Alzheimer's risk linked to brains that were aging normally, the study found. In other words, someone with a biologically old brain is about 12 times as likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's as a person the same age with a biologically young brain, researchers concluded. These results could open the door to new medical screenings that could determine people's risk for various diseases based on the biological age of their organs, Wyss-Coray said. Future research also could figure out whether existing approved drugs might restore organ youth before people develop a disease based on that aging organ, he added. "This is, ideally, the future of medicine," Wyss-Coray said. "Today, you go to the doctor because something aches, and they take a look to see what's broken. We're trying to shift from sick care to health care and intervene before people get organ-specific disease." Wyss-Coray plans to commercialize the blood sample test, working with companies to get it on the market within a few years. "The cost will come down as we focus on fewer key organs, such as the brain, heart and immune system, to get more resolution and stronger links to specific diseases," he said. More information The Mayo Clinic has more on biological versus chronological age. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
