Brain damage, shrinkage: Horror new long Covid find

Covid-19 caused brain damage and shrinkage even in patients who had mild doses of the virus, alarming new international research has revealed.

Covid-19 has caused brain damage and shrinkage in patients who had mild doses of the virus, international research has found.

A mild case of Covid-19 can cause “significant” damage to the brain, and the shock extent of the neurobiological harm has been revealed today in one of the biggest brain-imaging studies since the pandemic hit.

Researchers compared brain scans from 785 people aged 51 to 81 before and after mostly mild infections.

The findings revealed the virus can cause shrinking of brain in regions essential for processing smell, memory, cognition and emotion.

University of Queensland Brain Institute senior research fellow Susannah Tye said the findings highlighted the need for further research into the long-term effects of Covid-19, and how factors such as reinfection impacted the level of damage.

“Long-term follow-up is also needed to determine whether these effects are reversed over time. However, these data clearly show that even when only causing mild respiratory illness, the Covid virus can directly target and damage the brain.,” Dr Tye said.

The brain expert said there is a need for sustained preventive measures to reduce the viral transmission, as well as further development of treatments that can target and protect the brain from Covid-19.

The research was carried out by University of Oxford, University College London, and Imperial College (UK), National Institutes of Health (US).

“Any clinical intervention for mood, anxiety or cognitive symptoms resulting from Covid exposure will need to account for neuroinflammation as a potential causative factor and treatment target. Standard antidepressant treatments, for example, may not be effective under these conditions,” Dr Tye said.

Professor Anthony Hannan, a NHMRC principal research fellow from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, said the new study provided some of the strongest evidence yet that infection with the virus could affect brain structure and function, and associated cognition.

“Key questions arising from this new study include whether the brain and cognitive changes were directly due to the virus invading the brain, versus inflammation in the body spreading to the brain (‘neuro-inflammation’), accelerated neurodegeneration or perhaps even sensory deprivation. Loss of taste and smell are highly common symptoms of Covid,” he said.