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Scientific American, 7.23.25: The Pandemic Aged Everyone’s Brain—Even in Healthy People.
A study of nearly 1,000 people showed that brain aging was not linked to infection status
"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.
"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."
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