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A large-scale study from Radboud University Medical Center has challenged the belief that additional years of schooling protect against brain aging. Researchers, led by Rogier Kievit and Nicholas Judd, examined the long-term effects of an extra year of education on the brain by using data from a “natural experiment” involving 30,000 people in the United Kingdom. Their surprising findings, published recently, show that an additional year of schooling has no measurable impact on brain structure or aging.
Education has long been linked to various benefits, including better health, cognitive function, and career outcomes. However, whether prolonged education directly alters brain structure or helps protect the brain against aging has remained unclear. Researchers faced the challenge of isolating the effects of education from other factors such as genetics, socioeconomic conditions, and environmental influences, all of which can also shape brain development and aging.
The unique “natural experiment” arose in 1972, when the UK government increased the mandatory schooling age from 15 to 16. This law change provided a rare opportunity to study the effects of an additional year of education on people who experienced this shift, while controlling for other variables that could affect brain development.
Using brain imaging data collected over several decades, including MRI scans taken 46 years later, the researchers compared the brain structures of individuals who attended an extra year of school with those who did not. The results were striking: they found no significant differences in brain volume, surface area, cortical thickness, or other measures of brain health between the two groups.
“We had expected education to provide some protective benefits against brain aging,” said Nicholas Judd. “We know that education has numerous positive effects, and we were hopeful it might also have long-lasting effects on brain structure. However, our data shows no evidence of this.”
Although this study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that education is beneficial for cognitive health, it challenges the notion that it leads to lasting physical changes in the brain. Previous studies have shown that people with more education tend to have better cognitive abilities, healthier lives, and higher levels of employment, but these benefits do not appear to be visible through brain scans.
Kievit, who is also the principal investigator at the Lifespan Cognitive Dynamics lab, noted that the study highlights the importance of distinguishing between correlation and causation. “While we see correlations between education and brain health, our study shows that these do not translate into detectable changes in brain structure,” he explained.
One possible explanation for the lack of findings could be that the effects of an extra year of education might only be temporary or too small to detect with MRI scans. “Perhaps education temporarily increases brain size, but it returns to baseline later, just as muscles might show growth after training but eventually return to normal over time,” Kievit suggested.
While the results may be surprising, they provide important insights into the complex relationship between education, brain health, and aging. The study also underscores the need for further research into the factors that contribute to brain aging and cognitive decline, beyond the scope of formal education.
