- Im Video: Corona ages the brain by 20 years – whoever is most affected by it
It has long been known that a corona infection can have a negative impact on brain function. People with Long Covid in particular often suffer from brain fog, concentration and memory problems and other complaints for weeks and months after the infection .
People who have a more severe course of the disease and need to be treated in hospital are particularly at risk. But Corona apparently affects the brain even with a mild infection. This is now shown by a human challenge study from Great Britain published in the specialist magazine “ The Lancet “was published.
For the study, 34 young and healthy volunteers who had not yet been infected with Corona were infected with the wild type of Sars-CoV-2 and carefully monitored. 18 participants actually became infected and developed mild illness. One subject remained asymptomatic.
Cognitive testing before, during and after infection
To check brain function, participants completed cognitive tests – once before the infection, during the infection and up to a year after. The following areas were tested:
- memory performance
- Planning ability
- linguistic skills
- Problem-solving skills
Infected people achieved lower values than non-infected subjects
When evaluating these data, it turned out that those who were infected with Sars-CoV-2 had lower values both during the infection and in the follow-up period than the subjects who were not infected. According to the study, the largest differences occurred in memory and executive function tasks (including working memory, attention and problem solving).
The interesting thing about it: None of the infected test subjects reported persistent cognitive impairments. Overall, the differences were small, the researchers emphasize. Nevertheless, the highly sensitive tests showed disorders or limitations that resulted from the infection.
Study can help develop treatment options for those affected
“Challenge studies can help us better understand how infections disrupt a range of biological functions,” said co-author Christopher Chiu of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London in a Press release .
“By showing biological effects that are below what could be described as symptoms or disease, we were able to identify the smallest changes in these signaling pathways,” the researcher continued. This could ultimately help develop new treatments to reduce or even block some of these effects, the professor explained. This is particularly important for people who experience extreme effects after an infection.
Brain aged by 20 years in hospitalized corona patients
The effects on the brain can be striking, especially for people who experience severe corona courses and have to be hospitalized. This was recently shown by a study from Great Britain published in the specialist journal “ Nature Medicine “was published.
In this group of people, the cognitive abilities were still significantly worse twelve to 18 months after the infection than in comparable control subjects. So bad that they were roughly equivalent to aging the brain by 20 years.
Researchers also found increased markers of brain injury in the blood and MRI scans of the brain showed reduced volume of the anterior cingulate cortex (the front part of the cerebral cortex that controls many higher brain functions). Horrifying results that prove once again that Corona is not just a respiratory disease.
