A recent study by Oxford University experts, to which specialists from Imperial College also contributed, shows that COVID-19 infection can wreak havoc on patients’ brains. Thus, researchers have shown that SARS-CoV-2 infection can be extremely harmful to the brain, causing serious cognitive deficits such as “brain fog”, seizures, depression, loss of sense of smell (anosmia), altered sense of taste (dysgeusia). , hearing loss, but also permanent neurological deficits due to strokes.
The UK study is the first to document brain changes in a large group of patients who underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans both before and after COVID-19 infections. These were compared with similar tests performed on patients who did not go through the disease.
Patients, associated on several criteria
Specifically, the experts compared the results of analyzes to which 782 people were subjected. Of these, 394 were infected with SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and April 2021, but most had COVID-19 after October 2020, when the number of infections exploded in the UK.
Of the 394 infected, 15 had more severe forms of the disease and were hospitalized for an average of 10 days. Brain scans in this group were compared with MRI brain scans of 388 people who had not been infected with COVID-19. For a better accuracy of the study, people in the two groups were associated with age, sex, ethnicity and basic metabolic factors, including blood pressure and body mass index, the latter being considered an indicator for obesity, a factor of risk for COVID-19 severity.
Affected areas
Comparing the two groups of MRI analyzes, those performed before and after infection, the experts observed that patients who underwent COVID-19 lost gray mass in certain parts of the brain and that those who did not have the disease did not manifested.
The loss of gray matter is considered very serious because it is responsible for processing the signals generated in the sensory organs. The researchers also found abnormalities of the olfactory and gustatory systems, as well as affecting the area responsible for memory. In addition, the orbitofrontal cortex, responsible for emotion, was also affected.
One in three patients has neurological or psychiatric problems
In fact, another study by Oxford experts showed that about a third of patients who went through COVID-19 were diagnosed with neurological or psychiatric conditions. The study found these sequelae over a period of at least six months after SARS-CoV-2 infection. The British studied a sample of 236,379 COVID-19 survivors, of whom 33.6% had neurological or psychiatric impairment. Moreover, in patients who needed hospitalization for intensive care, the damage amounted to 46.4%. Among other things, patients developed intracranial hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, Parkinson’s syndrome, Guillain-Barré syndrome, nerve disorders, nerve root and plexus, or even dementia.
Very severely, stroke affected 2% of all patients with COVID-19, increasing to 7% of those admitted to intensive care and 9% of those who had delirium. Dementia was also diagnosed in 0.7% of all infected patients, increasing to 5% of those who experienced delirium as a symptom.
Finally, mood, anxiety, or psychotic disorders affected 24% of all patients, but this increased to 25% in those hospitalized, 28% in people who had ATI, and 36% in those who suffered from delirium. during illness.
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