A recent study linked COVID-19 infections with smaller brain regions, but scientists are still trying to figure out the implications. COVID19 CovidIsNotOver COVID COVID19Research Pandemic
“The brain is dynamic,” says neuroscientist Emily Jacobs of the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Less doesn’t mean worse, necessarily, and more doesn’t mean better.”
Pregnancy, and its ensuing hormone shifts, can also change the brain. In 2016, I covered a study that described Jacobs also works on menopause, another big hormonal shift that affects the brain. And she has preliminary evidence that men’s brains change day-to-day, too. Like me, Jacobs also grapples with language when describing some of these changes. Words matter, quite a bit, she says. “You can paint [research findings] as a good thing or as a horror story.”