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28-02-2022, 06:38 PM
One of the most common symptoms of long COVID is what’s often called “brain fog”—a term Perlowski detests.
“Brain fog sounds like you were kind of up on call all night, or with a screaming baby all night, and you are a little bit slower than normal,” she says. “But the kind of cognitive impairment that happens with this is to the point where some people have trouble reading, writing, carrying on conversations. It’s very similar to a traumatic brain injury.”
A non-peer-reviewed study published in August of 2021 reported that MRI brain scans on 401 COVID patients found tissue damage and the loss of gray matter. Brain atrophy was another common issue: On average, individuals showed smaller brain sizes post-infection and increased presence of cerebrospinal fluid. The patients also performed worse on basic cognitive tests compared to non-COVID sufferers.
Although COVID’s myriad effects on the brain are still unclear, leading hypotheses suggest that the virus might infiltrate the cerebrum through olfactory nerves, or trigger the immune cells to attack brain cells.
Long COVID symptoms top 100, complicating treatment | Popular Science (popsci.com)
“Brain fog sounds like you were kind of up on call all night, or with a screaming baby all night, and you are a little bit slower than normal,” she says. “But the kind of cognitive impairment that happens with this is to the point where some people have trouble reading, writing, carrying on conversations. It’s very similar to a traumatic brain injury.”
A non-peer-reviewed study published in August of 2021 reported that MRI brain scans on 401 COVID patients found tissue damage and the loss of gray matter. Brain atrophy was another common issue: On average, individuals showed smaller brain sizes post-infection and increased presence of cerebrospinal fluid. The patients also performed worse on basic cognitive tests compared to non-COVID sufferers.
Although COVID’s myriad effects on the brain are still unclear, leading hypotheses suggest that the virus might infiltrate the cerebrum through olfactory nerves, or trigger the immune cells to attack brain cells.
Long COVID symptoms top 100, complicating treatment | Popular Science (popsci.com)
