You Didn’t Catch COVID. But the Pandemic Still Aged Your Brain

Even without contracting COVID-19, many people may have experienced accelerated brain aging just from living through the pandemic.

A major UK brain scan study found that stress, isolation, and uncertainty during the Covid era left subtle yet measurable marks on the brain, especially in older adults and disadvantaged groups.

A Pandemic Surprise: Accelerated Brain Aging Without Infection

A recent study from the University of Nottingham suggests that living through the COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated brain aging, even in people who never contracted the virus.

What does it mean to age, not just physically, but mentally? Can prolonged stress, isolation, and upheaval have lasting effects on the brain?

Published in Nature Communications, the research found that individuals who experienced the pandemic showed increased signs of brain aging over time when compared to those whose brain scans were taken entirely before it. These changes were especially prominent in older adults, men, and people from less advantaged backgrounds.

“What surprised me most was that even people who hadn’t had COVID showed significant increases in brain aging rates.”

Dr. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad

Infection Worsens Some Cognitive Skills

Participants who tested positive for COVID-19 between brain scans experienced declines in certain thinking abilities, such as mental flexibility and processing speed. This finding suggests that while infection can impact cognition, the broader effect of pandemic-related brain aging (in the absence of infection) may not always result in obvious symptoms. Researchers also noted that these changes could potentially be reversed.

The research was carried out by a team from the university’s School of Medicine, with support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre and the Medical Research Council (MRC) DEMISTIFI program.

A Researcher’s Candid Reaction

Dr. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad led the study. He said, “What surprised me most was that even people who hadn’t had COVID showed significant increases in brain aging rates. It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.”

The research team looked at longitudinal brain scans from nearly 1,000 healthy adults, taken as part of the UK Biobank study. Some participants had scans before and after the pandemic; others, only before. Using advanced imaging and machine learning, the researchers estimated each person’s “brain age”—how old their brain appeared to be compared to their actual age.

The brain age model was developed using brain scans from over 15,000 healthy individuals, without comorbidities, allowing the researchers to build an accurate model for estimating brain age.

“This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment,” said Dorothee Auer, Professor of Neuroimaging and senior author on the study. “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.”

Stamatios Sotiropoulos, Professor of Computational Neuroimaging, and co-lead author added: “The longitudinal MRI data acquired before and after the pandemic from the UK Biobank gave us a rare window to observe how major life events can affect the brain.”

Reference: “Accelerated brain ageing during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, Martin Craig, Eleanor F. Cox, Xin Chen, R. Gisli Jenkins, Susan Francis, Stamatios N. Sotiropoulos and Dorothee P. Auer, 22 July 2025, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61033-4

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