COVID Can Cause Cognitive Impairment and Brain Damage

COVID Can Cause Cognitive Impairment and Brain Damage

The coronavirus has been found to have a long-term effect on the brain in studies.

The coronavirus has a significant impact on the brain. And research demonstrates that this is what happens even when patients with mild COVID lose their sense of smell. In early experiments, a person's loss of scent looked to be sufficient enough to indicate that they had infected the unusual virus. Furthermore, it was a sufficient predictor that COVID was causing the upper respiratory distress a patient was experiencing. Despite early expectations that the loss of smell would be transient and disappear once a patient no longer tested positive, many people have reported continuing to be unable to smell long after the illness has passed. As a result, researchers became obsessed with figuring out what was causing the symptoms to persist, and they did.

The nervous system is now known to be affected. It is possible for brain injury to occur.

An paper published in JAMA Network Open late last month attempted to use data from spinal taps to evaluate how the brain is damaged. The virus is known to produce brain fog, excessive weariness, and attention and memory issues. These problems are linked to the so-called "long COVID." COVID can result in brain damage, neuropathy, and delirium.

Scientists looked studied brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and assessments of brain function in 785 participants using data from the UK Biobank database. "Around half of those participants had mild COVID infection, while the other half had contracted the virus," they discovered. The team was able to identify the consequences of a mild COVID infection on brain structure and function as a result of this." The researchers discovered that even those with a moderate illness had some brain atrophy.

"Among individuals who had not developed neurological problems while hospitalised, 88 percent reported new cognitive symptoms," the researchers added. These cognitive abnormalities appear to be distinct from damage caused by hypoxia, or a shortage of oxygen to the brain, which is common in patients with severe COVID-19."

Arvid Edén and a colleague from Sweden analysed the cerebral fluid of COVID patients to expand on their first findings, which were published in the journal Nature in March. The study included 21 patients with the virus and nervous system pathology (mainly encephalopathy), 23 patients with COVID but no nervous system abnormalities, 41 hospitalised COVID patients, and 10 healthy controls.

"Of 44 COVID-19 patients (23 neurosymptomatic) included in this hospital-based cross-sectional investigation, CSF nucleocapsid antigen was detectable in 89 percent of patients with available data and was substantially linked with immune activation indicators (neopterin and interferon")," they discovered. Furthermore, compared to neuroasymptomatic individuals, neurosymptomatic patients had a more significant inflammatory CSF profile, which could not be explained to differences in COVID-19 severity."

In other words, when a person acquires the coronavirus, the brain is at risk of being harmed, regardless of how severe the symptoms are.

Sources: COVID-19's This Is Your Brain

Compared to Control Participants Without Infection or Neurologic Symptoms, Viral Antigen and Inflammatory Biomarkers in Cerebrospinal Fluid in Patients With COVID-19 Infection and Neurologic Symptoms

In the UK Biobank, SARS-CoV-2 is linked to changes in brain structure.

According to a new study, even modest COVID can cause brain atrophy and compromise mental performance.

Long-Term Brain Injury (Covid-19)