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San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
The COVID pandemic may have aged your brain. Here's what the science says
The COVID-19 pandemic left an indelible mark on society — and now, new research suggests it may have also prematurely aged our brains by an average of 5.5 months, even among those who never caught the virus. In a study published in Nature Communications on Tuesday, researchers from the University of Nottingham in Britain analyzed brain scans from nearly 1,000 adults taken both before and after the pandemic began. The team investigated whether the global crisis had affected brain health. They used artificial intelligence trained on pre-pandemic data from more than 15,000 healthy participants in the U.K. Biobank to model normal brain aging. When applied to the new scans, the algorithm revealed a clear pattern: People who lived through the pandemic — regardless of infection status — showed signs of accelerated structural brain aging. 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had COVID showed significant increases in brain aging rates,' said lead author Dr. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a researcher at the University of Nottingham, in a paper accompanying the study. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' The effects were most pronounced in men, older adults and individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. While only those who had been infected with COVID-19 showed measurable declines in cognitive performance — such as slower thinking and reduced mental flexibility—structural brain changes were observed across the broader population. 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment,' said Dorothee Auer, senior author of the study. The long-term impact of these changes remains unknown, but the researchers say the findings highlight the need to consider the mental and neurological effects of large-scale social disruption. '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 said. '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.'
Yahoo
4 hours 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
Yahoo
12 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@
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First Post
12 hours ago
- 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.
Scientific American
15 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.
