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Those with Long Covid, a disease in which symptoms exist months or even years after the Covid 19 virus has been caught, have long reported as a “brain fog”.
Although scientists are not sure why the link seems to exist, some suspect that covid can exist long after the acute infection in the intestine, which leads to microbioma changes in connection with brain problems.
New research results published this week (July 22) in Nature Communications has suggested that the pandemic may have aged all of our brains, regardless of whether we have caught the virus or not.
In fact, it seemed to have aged our brain for almost six months.
How much did the pandemic of our brain aged?
The researchers examined the brain scans of almost 1,000 healthy people from the British Bio Chanery.
They checked them from pandemic, and some also had scans afterwards.
Using data from over 15,000 brain scans as well as machine learning and imaging remedies, the scientists predicted the brain age of the participants involved in the study.
After comparing the linish scans (the participants were coordinated with gender, age and state of health), the researchers found that the aging of our brain had been accelerated by an average of 5.5 months after the pandemic.
This was the case whether the participants had actually caught Covid themselves or not.
“What surprised me the most was that even people who did not have had a significant increase in the brain rates showed a significant increase in brain rates,” said the main author of the study, Dr. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad.
“It really shows how much the experience of pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, our health of the brain could have influenced.”
Why did the pandemic seem to make our brain faster?
This study did not try to find out, but their results indicate that the aging of the brain has hit men and socio -economic disadventional people harder.
The researchers speculated that a lack of conviviality and exercise for some in pandemic could have led to changes, as well as the increased alcohol consumption.
“This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but also by our daily environment,” said Dr. Dorothee Auer, Professor of Neuroimaging and Senior author in the study.
“Pandemy puts a strain on people’s lives, especially those who already have disadvantages. We cannot yet test whether the changes we have seen reverse, but it is certainly possible, and that is an encouraging thought.”
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