Gwenaëlle Douaud, Soojin Lee, Fidel Alfaro-Almagro
Christoph Arthofer, Chaoyue Wang, Paul McCarthy, Frederik Lange, Jesper L. R. Andersson, Ludovica Griffanti, Eugene Duff, Saad Jbabdi, Bernd Taschler, Peter Keating, Anderson M. Winkler, Rory Collins, Paul M. Matthews, Naomi Allen, Karla L. Miller, Thomas E. Nichols, Stephen M. Smith
2022 · Nature
Abstract There is strong evidence of brain-related abnormalities in COVID-19 1–13 . However, it remains unknown whether the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection can be detected in milder cases, and whether this can reveal possible mechanisms contributing to brain pathology. Here we investigated brain changes in 785 participants of UK Biobank (aged 51–81 years) who were imaged twice using magnetic resonance imaging, including 401 cases who tested positive for infection with SARS-CoV-2 between their two scans—with 141 days on average separating their diagnosis and the second scan—as well as 384 controls. The availability of pre-infection imaging data reduces the likelihood of pre-existing risk factors being misinterpreted as disease effects. We identified significant longitudinal effects when comparing the two groups, including (1) a greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus; (2) greater changes in markers of tissue damage in regions that are functionally connected to the primary olfactory cortex; and (3) a greater reduction in global brain size in the SARS-CoV-2 cases. The participants who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 also showed on average a greater cognitive decline between the two time points. Importantly, these imaging and cognitive longitudinal effects were still observed after excluding the 15 patients who had been hospitalised. These mainly limbic brain imaging results may be the in vivo hallmarks of a degenerative spread of the disease through olfactory pathways, of neuroinflammatory events, or of the loss of sensory input due to anosmia. Whether this deleterious effect can be partially reversed, or whether these effects will persist in the long term, remains to be investigated with additional follow-up.
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The U.K. BioBank study should put this to rest: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 These are participants whose health is being followed long term. They had brain scans before and after COVID, and abnormalities were detected in the scans post-COVID.
* Mild Covid is linked to brain damage months after [1][2] * Here is a collection of threads describing all the possible negative influences COVID has on the cardiovascular system, the brain, kidneys and the autoimmune system. https://twitter.com/laurieallee/status/1521178772023652352 [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-covid-even-m... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5
>I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with... I thought that sentence was going to end with "Covid".[1] Research was just published yesterday which indicates that even mild cases have resulted in damage to the brain. Meanwhile, over the last few months we have just accepted that everyone is going to get it eventually. Who knows what the long term impact will be of us all giving ourselves a little brain damage? EDIT: It is funny that the HN community's commitment to moving on from the pandemic has gotten to the point in which linking to research that suggests maybe getting Covid is bad is downvoted. [1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5
Although it is easy to attribute this to school closures, we should not dismiss the possibility of these results being caused by brain damage from (repeated) COVID infections [1, 2, 3]. [1] Douaud, G., Lee, S., Alfaro-Almagro, F. et al. SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank. Nature 604, 697–707 (2022). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5#citeas [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2022.9921... [3] https://neurosciencenews.com/covid-microglia-21676/ [3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-022-11398-z
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