A new brain imaging study suggests that young people who experience brief psychotic symptoms, such as short hallucinations or unusual beliefs, may show signs of faster brain aging during early adulthood.
The research was carried out by scientists from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain, Cardiff University, and University College London, and was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science.
Psychotic experiences can include seeing or hearing things that are not there, or having thoughts that feel strange or unrealistic. These experiences are more common than many people realize.
About 7% of young people report having them at some point. In most cases, they are short-lived and do not mean the person has a mental illness. However, scientists have long wondered whether these experiences are linked to changes in how the brain develops.
To explore this question, the researchers focused on a concept known as “brain age.” Brain age is an estimate of how old a brain appears based on MRI scans.
Scientists use computer models to analyze brain structure and compare it with typical patterns seen at different ages. If a brain looks older than the person’s actual age, this difference is called the brain-age gap.
Previous research has shown that some health conditions, such as schizophrenia, chronic migraines, and high blood pressure, are linked to brains that appear older than expected. But it was not clear whether brief psychotic experiences in otherwise healthy young people were connected to similar changes.
To find out, the research team trained a machine-learning model using more than 2,600 brain scans. This model learned how to predict a person’s brain age from an MRI image.
The scientists then applied this model to brain scans from young adults who took part in a long-running UK study known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, often called “Children of the 90s.”
The team examined brain scans from 245 people aged 20 and 279 people aged 30. Some of these participants had reported psychotic experiences, while others had not. A smaller group of 113 people had brain scans taken at both ages, allowing the researchers to track changes over time.
The results showed that at age 20, young adults who had experienced psychotic-like symptoms had brains that looked older than their real age. This suggests that their brains may develop differently during early adulthood. However, the effect did not appear to be permanent.
By age 30, the difference in brain age between those with and without psychotic experiences was no longer clear. This may mean that the brain catches up later in development, or that the psychotic experiences fade as people grow older. The researchers say it is still unclear exactly why this happens.
The study also found that people who reported more intense or frequent psychotic experiences tended to have a larger brain-age gap, suggesting a possible link between symptom severity and brain development.
Professor Derek Jones from Cardiff University explained that these findings point to differences in the timing of brain development rather than long-term brain damage. In early adulthood, the brain may appear more mature in people with psychotic experiences, but this difference seems to even out later on.
The researchers stress that more studies are needed, especially involving larger and more diverse groups of people. Understanding how these early brain changes affect long-term mental health could help scientists better understand how the brain develops and why some young people experience psychotic-like symptoms.
If you care about mental health, please read studies about how dairy foods may influence depression risk, and 6 foods you can eat to improve mental health.
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