Accelerated brain ageing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Public Health
• Gerontology

Background:

• The impact of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic on brain health is recognized but understudied.
• Brain aging is a critical factor in cognitive decline and overall health.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the pandemic's impact on brain aging using longitudinal neuroimaging data.
• To determine if the pandemic accelerates brain aging independently of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Main Methods:

• Trained brain age prediction models on multi-modal imaging features from 15,334 healthy participants (UK Biobank).
• Applied models to an independent cohort of 996 healthy participants with pre- and post-pandemic MRI scans.
• Compared brain age gap changes between control and pandemic groups, analyzing demographic and infection status.

Main Results:

• The pandemic group showed a significantly accelerated brain aging (average 5.5-month increase in brain age gap) compared to controls.
• Accelerated brain aging was more pronounced in males and individuals from deprived socio-demographic backgrounds.
• Accelerated brain aging occurred regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection, but correlated with reduced cognitive performance only in infected participants.

Conclusions:

• The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerates brain aging, independent of direct SARS-CoV-2 infection.
• Broader societal and health factors associated with the pandemic contribute to accelerated brain aging.
• Findings highlight the need to address social and health inequalities in understanding pandemic's long-term health impacts.