???COVID Had a Startling Impact on Our Brains, New Research Says—Here's What a Neurologist Wants You to Do

study, published on July 22, 2025, in Nature Communications, researchers observed brain scans from 1,000 people before and during the pandemic and compared them with scans of people from when life was more, well, normal.<

They looked at the volume of gray matter (the part of the brain that controls movement, emotions and memory) and white matter (the part of the brain that's responsible for most of your nervous system functioning) participants had, as well as their chronological age, cognitive skills and overall brain function.


The study's findings were startling: Brains during the pandemic aged at a rate of about 5.5 months faster than brains in "normal" periods, whether or not people actually were ever infected with COVID-19. <


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"Almost everyone over the age of 50 knows that their ability to remember new information and their ability to recall names and words is less than it was in their 20s," he tells Parade. "This brain aging progresses throughout the rest of life. Ironically, our wisdom increases through experience as we age, but our word finding and recall do decline each year." <


Just about everyone loses some brain cells and sees a reduction in brain volume with age. However, when a person goes through more changes to their brain health than is considered normal for their age, it's often referred to as "brain atrophy." According to Cleveland Clinic, signs of brain atrophy may include:<


Apathy or anhedonia (not caring about or enjoying things you usually love)

Aphasia (difficulty with reading, writing, speaking or understanding words)


Depression


Hallucinations

Irritability

Memory loss

Mood swings

Personality changes
Poor judgment

Seizures

How Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact Brain Aging for People Who Weren't Infected? Lead study author Dr. Ali Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, M.Sc., Ph.D., said in a statement to TIME that the findings were somewhat unexpected, as previous studies found that being infected with COVID-19 impacted brain health negatively (especially those unlucky enough to get long COVID).<


"We found that participants who simply lived through the pandemic period, regardless of infection, also showed signs of slightly accelerated brain aging. This highlights that the broader experience of the pandemic—including disruptions to daily life, stress, reduced social interactions, reduced activity, etc.,—may have had a measurable impact on brain health," Dr. Mohammadi-Nejad explains.


Research has shown that both stress and not maintaining social connections can accelerate cognitive decline, and goodness knows that the pandemic caused a lot of stress and exacerbated loneliness for many, so if you're concerned about its impact on your brain aging, definitely speak with your doctor.


Related: This Is the No. 1 Habit to Reduce Dementia Risk

How Does COVID-19 Infection Impact Brain Health? For some people who did get infected with COVID, neurologists say that brain health is impacted in a big way.


"The acute viral infection was associated with hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), which affects many brain areas, but especially those involved in short-term memory," Dr. Schulz tells Parade. Additionally, he notes, "COVID was associated with clogging of blood vessels, so strokes, large or small, were observed with COVID."

COVID is also associated with brain inflammation (also called encephalitis), which can age our brains. "COVID, like many viruses, can cause an acute encephalitis. That is usually associated with immediate changes in cognition and brain volumes. People may recover after that, but some persons remain chronically impaired," Dr. Schulz says. "COVID is one of the few viruses where we also observe people who may be cognitively normal during the viral infection and when the infection clears. However, over the subsequent months to years, they may experience cognitive decline and brain volume loss."


Related: Neurologists Say This Hobby Can Lower Dementia Risk—if Done the Right Way


How Can We Slow or Reduce Brain Aging? In terms of brain aging from COVID-19 infections, Dr. Schulz says it's not clear just yet how to prevent or slow it because the specific cause hasn't been pinpointed yet. That said, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 can help prevent severe infection, which can, in turn, prevent hypoxia, which is harmful for your brain aging.

For dementia or other brain atrophy disorders that aren't necessarily tied to COVID, some studies suggest we may be able to reduce our risk by a whopping 45% through treating and avoiding risk factors.