A study has found that the brain aged significantly faster during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of infection status. This indicates that stress levels rose across society, impacting everyone’s brains.
A research team from the University of Nottingham in the UK confirmed this fact by conducting comparative analyses of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on about 1,000 adults, as stated in the international journal "Nature Communications" on the 23rd.
Overall brain aging during the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to be attributed to stress, social isolation, and changing lifestyles. Previous studies have indicated that those infected with COVID-19, particularly the elderly, may experience worsened neurodegeneration and cognitive decline.
The research team developed a model for predicting age by training artificial intelligence (AI) on brain MRI data from 15,334 healthy adults with an average age of 63. Using this, they predicted brain ages for 996 participants to examine how these changed before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the participants, 432 underwent MRI scans before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, while 564 were scanned twice only before the pandemic. The analysis revealed that the brain aged an average of 5.5 months more during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of infection status.
Notably, brain aging was much faster in the elderly, men, patients in poor health, and those from lower-income and lower-education backgrounds. The researchers cited social isolation, stress, and lifestyle changes as the causes of accelerated brain aging.
The aging of the brain did not universally correlate with a decrease in cognitive abilities. The researchers tested the cognitive abilities of participants and found that only those who had been infected with COVID-19 showed declines in cognitive abilities, such as flexibility and processing speed. This means that brain aging does not necessarily lead to declines in cognitive abilities such as reasoning and memory.
The researchers noted that, although the findings of this study are limited to UK adults, it is significant in revealing the direct and indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, the first author of the paper and a researcher at the University of Nottingham, stated, "Brain health can be affected by changes in daily environments as well as diseases," adding, "This study showed that pandemics actually have a much greater impact on vulnerable groups."
Eugene Duff, a researcher from Imperial College London, remarked, "This study highlights that experiencing a pandemic is related to brain aging, even without COVID-19 infection, and that gender or socioeconomic background can further accelerate aging."
On the other hand, Masud Husain, a professor at the University of Oxford, questioned, "The difference in brain age before and after the COVID-19 pandemic is only about 5 months; whether this difference will significantly impact daily life is debatable," and added, "It remains to be seen whether brain aging has recovered over time."
References
Nature Communications (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61033-4