- Brain fog is one of the most debilitating symptoms that people with long COVID experience.
- Some studies have suggested over a fifth of people with long COVID experience it.
- As the symptom is a cognitive one and the mechanism is poorly understood, it is difficult to develop diagnostic tests for it.
- Now, researchers have found that some people with long COVID and brain fog have dysregulated blood-brain barriers that can leak, and dysregulated coagulation, up to 1 year after infection with SARS-CoV-2.
Cognitive impairment lasting more than 3 months affects over a fifth (22%) of people who had an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Described colloquially as “brain fog”, this symptom — associated with a post-viral condition called “long COVID” — can be debilitating for some people who are affected, but there is little understanding of the mechanisms underpinning it.
Lack of understanding of the mechanisms underpinning these symptoms makes it difficult to both diagnose and treat.
Some of the mechanisms that researchers have suggested contribute to long COVID include microclots, as SARS-CoV-2 appears to affect the lining of blood vessels, and low serotonin that may play a role in brain fog.
Dr. Scott Kaiser, a board-certified geriatrician and director of Geriatric Cognitive Health for the Pacific Neuroscience Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA told Medical News Today:
“Because this is all a relatively new phenomen[on] the overall understanding continues to evolve. There are many potential pathways — reduced oxygen delivery, reduced blood flow, an attack by the immune system on healthy brain cells or an actual invasion of infectious cells into the brain, or inflammation affecting brain cells — and a combination of multiple factors may be at play.“
Now, researchers in Dublin, Ireland have proposed that the blood-brain barrier could be affected in patients with long COVID and cognitive impairment,…
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