No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals
Education is related to a wide variety of beneficial health, behavioral, and societal outcomes. However, whether education causes long-term structural changes in the brain remains unclear. A pressing challenge is that individuals self-select into continued education, thereby introducing a wide varie...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
2025-07-01
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| Series: | eLife |
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| Online Access: | https://elifesciences.org/articles/101526 |
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| author | Nicholas Judd Rogier Kievit |
| author_facet | Nicholas Judd Rogier Kievit |
| author_sort | Nicholas Judd |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Education is related to a wide variety of beneficial health, behavioral, and societal outcomes. However, whether education causes long-term structural changes in the brain remains unclear. A pressing challenge is that individuals self-select into continued education, thereby introducing a wide variety of environmental and genetic confounders. Fortunately, natural experiments allow us to isolate the causal impact of increased education from individual (and societal) characteristics. Here, we exploit a policy change in the UK (the 1972 ROSLA act) that increased the amount of mandatory schooling from 15 to 16 years of age to study the impact of education on long-term structural brain outcomes in the UK Biobank. Using regression discontinuity (RD) – a causal inference method – we find no evidence of an effect from an additional year of education on any structural neuroimaging outcomes. This null result is robust across modalities, regions, and analysis strategies. An additional year of education is a substantial cognitive intervention, yet we find no evidence for sustained experience-dependent plasticity. Our results provide a challenge for prominent accounts of cognitive or ‘brain reserve’ theories which identify education as a major protective factor to lessen adverse aging effects. Our preregistered findings are one of the first implementations of RD on neural data – opening the door for causal inference in population-based neuroimaging. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-fda283c253d0412b8659cfd6439eab23 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2050-084X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | eLife Sciences Publications Ltd |
| record_format | Article |
| series | eLife |
| spelling | doaj-art-fda283c253d0412b8659cfd6439eab232025-08-20T03:55:48ZengeLife Sciences Publications LtdeLife2050-084X2025-07-011310.7554/eLife.101526No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individualsNicholas Judd0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0196-9871Rogier Kievit1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0700-4568Cognitive Neuroscience Department, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands; Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala, SwedenCognitive Neuroscience Department, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, NetherlandsEducation is related to a wide variety of beneficial health, behavioral, and societal outcomes. However, whether education causes long-term structural changes in the brain remains unclear. A pressing challenge is that individuals self-select into continued education, thereby introducing a wide variety of environmental and genetic confounders. Fortunately, natural experiments allow us to isolate the causal impact of increased education from individual (and societal) characteristics. Here, we exploit a policy change in the UK (the 1972 ROSLA act) that increased the amount of mandatory schooling from 15 to 16 years of age to study the impact of education on long-term structural brain outcomes in the UK Biobank. Using regression discontinuity (RD) – a causal inference method – we find no evidence of an effect from an additional year of education on any structural neuroimaging outcomes. This null result is robust across modalities, regions, and analysis strategies. An additional year of education is a substantial cognitive intervention, yet we find no evidence for sustained experience-dependent plasticity. Our results provide a challenge for prominent accounts of cognitive or ‘brain reserve’ theories which identify education as a major protective factor to lessen adverse aging effects. Our preregistered findings are one of the first implementations of RD on neural data – opening the door for causal inference in population-based neuroimaging.https://elifesciences.org/articles/101526neuroimagingagingnatural experimentRegression discontinuity |
| spellingShingle | Nicholas Judd Rogier Kievit No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals eLife neuroimaging aging natural experiment Regression discontinuity |
| title | No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals |
| title_full | No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals |
| title_fullStr | No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals |
| title_full_unstemmed | No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals |
| title_short | No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure, a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals |
| title_sort | no effect of additional education on long term brain structure a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals |
| topic | neuroimaging aging natural experiment Regression discontinuity |
| url | https://elifesciences.org/articles/101526 |
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