Pandemic Brain Is Real, Even If You Didn’t Get COVID

A new study in Nature Communications confirms what many of us have long suspected: the stress of the pandemic changed our brains even if we never contracted COVID.

Researchers analyzed brain scans from nearly 1,000 healthy adults in the UK Biobank. They used machine learning to estimate each person’s “brain age” based on hundreds of imaging features, then compared it to their actual age over time. For those who had a scan before and after the pandemic began, the brain aged 5.5 months more than expected, a measurable sign of biological stress. While 5.5 months may seem small, researchers described the change as “striking” given how quickly and consistently it appeared across the population.

“These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic was detrimental to brain health and induced accelerated brain ageing in a manner that was independent of infection status. This highlights the major role of pandemic-related stressors such as anxiety, social isolation, and economic, and health insecurity on brain changes “

Mohammadi-Nejad et al., Nature Communications, 2025

The “pandemic brain” effect was observed in both gray and white matter and was most pronounced in older adults, men, and individuals with lower socioeconomic status (as indicated by income, education, or health scores). The brain changes were observed in areas associated with focus, memory, and emotional regulation, including the prefrontal cortex, insula, and thalamus.

While the accelerated aging showed up in everyone, only people who got COVID showed actual cognitive decline with slower mental processing and flexibility on tests.

For people with autoimmune and chronic illnesses, this is more proof that stress, isolation, and disrupted medical care access are just as biologically damaging as they are frustrating. Even without infection, the pandemic altered brain structure. That matters for a community already vulnerable to cognitive symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, and dysautonomia.

This study reinforces what many have known all along: you didn’t imagine it.

Citation

Mohammadi-Nejad, A. R., et al. (2025). Accelerated brain ageing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature communications, 16(1), 6411. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61033-4