The brains of healthy people aged faster during the COVID-19 pandemic than did the brains of people analysed before the pandemic began, a study of almost 1,000 people suggests. The accelerated ageing occurred even in people who didn’t become infected.

Even people who never caught Covid-19 may have aged mentally faster during the pandemic, according to new brain scan research. This large UK study shows how the stress, isolation, and upheaval of lockdowns may have aged our brains,

Using advanced machine learning models trained on over 15,000 healthy participants, the team estimated each person’s “brain age”— a measure of how old their brain appears compared to their actual age.