04 Dec Why Does Covid Cause Brain Fog?
With winter comes more fun and games with viruses. Lots of ink (or its analog) is being spilled over RSV, The Flu, and Covid, especially the latter’s long-term damage on vital organs such as the brain. We curated this story from National Geographic titled “Why does COVID-19 cause brain fog? Scientists may finally have an answer.” It is an eye-opening, if sobering, read.
When scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden infected brain organoids—pinhead-size bits of brain tissue grown in the lab—with the virus that causes COVID, they found that it accelerated the destruction of connections between neurons called synapses.
The discovery adds to the growing understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 enters the central nervous system and causes disease. In the last two years, scientists have documented long-lasting neural and behavioral problems in COVID-19 patients. One such condition, known as brain fog, causes disorientation, memory loss, chronic headache, and numbness, and it affects nearly 40 percent of long COVID patients.
Carl Sellgren, a psychiatrist and cellular biologist, and his team at the Karolinska Institute decided to use the organoids to try to learn what SARS-CoV-2 does to brain and whether it might help explain the neurological symptoms.
Their research has led them to conclude that destroying too many connections between neurons, or over-pruning, may be causing brain fog in long COVID patients…
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