Covid pandemic aged brains by an average of 5.5 months, study finds

New research reveals the Covid pandemic accelerated brain aging by an average of 5.5 months. An earlier study on how teen brains were affected found a similar result.

Brain aging may have sped up during the pandemic, even in people who didn’t get sick from Covid, a new study suggests.

Using brain scans from a very large database, British researchers determined that during the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, people’s brains showed signs of aging, including shrinkage, according to the report published in Nature Communications.

People who got infected with the virus also showed deficits in certain cognitive abilities, such as processing speed and mental flexibility.

The aging effect “was most pronounced in males and those from more socioeconomically deprived backgrounds,” the study’s first author, Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, a neuroimaging researcher at the University of Nottingham, said by email. “It highlights that brain health is not shaped solely by illness, but also by broader life experiences.”

Overall, the researchers found a 5.5-month acceleration in aging associated with the pandemic. On average, the difference in brain aging between men and women was small, about 2.5 months.