Qld research suggests COVID, chronic fatigue have similar effect on brains

Queensland scientists have used the strongest MRI machine in the world to reveal apparent similarities between how COVID-19 and chronic fatigue syndrome affect the brain.

Researchers at Griffith University used an ultra-high-field MRI (7 Tesla) to scan the brains of 28 patients: 10 with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), eight diagnosed with long COVID, and 10 without either condition.

The high-resolution machines allowed the Griffith University researchers to confirm that there were similar changes in the brains of long-COVID patients and those with ME/CFS in their study group. Credit: Griffith University

Lead research author Dr Kiran Thapaliya said they used the powerful imaging machine – one of only two in Australia – because they needed very clear scans of the patients’ brains.

“It provides extremely crisp images that can pick up abnormalities that might not be detected on other MRIs,” he said.

Using that high resolution enabled the researchers to confirm that, in their patient group, there were similar changes in the brains of long-COVID patients and those with ME/CFS.

Thapaliya said they found structural changes in the brain stems of long-COVID patients, and these changes were similar to the type of structure seen in ME/CFS patients.

Detailed scans of a long-COVID patient (left) and an ME/CFS patient (right) show similar structures in the brain stem.Credit: Griffith University

Recognised long-COVID symptoms can include fatigue, brain fog and breathing difficulties, and these are also seen in ME/CFS.

Thapaliya said the study size was very small, so they could not make any broad conclusions from it, but it did give a good indication that there could be a similar cause for both conditions.

“Brain stem dysfunction in chronic fatigue syndrome and long-COVID patients could contribute to their neurological and cardiorespiratory symptoms, and movement disorder,” he said.

“There seems to be a lot going on in the brain stem in both these conditions, so an experiment will be needed in the future to find out exactly what is happening in the brain; we can’t see that through the MRI.”

He said he and his colleagues were actively working to recruit more patients for the study, to see if they matched the initial findings.

Long COVID is still not well understood as it has been only a very short time, in research terms, since the pandemic began.

Despite that, it is estimated that up to 43 per cent of people infected by COVID develop some form of long COVID.

A federal parliamentary inquiry into long COVID concluded recently, with medical experts submitting that the condition was probably under-reported and needed to be dealt with through GPs and broader regulatory measures, such as making antivirals more freely available.

Off the back of the inquiry, federal health officials are developing a strategy on how to deal with cases of long COVID.

Meanwhile, Queensland has downplayed the need for action against the condition, with Queensland Health submitting to the federal inquiry that the state did not have high numbers of long-COVID patients.

It’s estimated up to 250,000 people are living with ME/CFS in Australia, with the condition still the subject of much debate in the medical community around its status and how to care for patients.

The Griffith University research has been published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.

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