Australian researchers find parallels between Alzheimer’s and long-COVID ‘brain fog’ | MeljCunningham
suggest there may be distinct parallels between the effects of COVID-19 on the brain and the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
“To cut a long story short, these amyloid plaques are very toxic to the brain cells and we hypothesise that aggregates of SARS-CoV-2 proteins may trigger neurological symptoms in COVID-19 that many of us call brain fog.” It examined the brains of more than 400 people aged 51 to 81, finding shrinkage and tissue damage primarily in areas related to sense of smell but also in areas involved in other brain functions, the researchers said.However, neurological experts cautioned that the implications of the changes were unclear and did not necessarily suggest people might have lasting damage or that the changes might profoundly affect thinking, memory or other functions.
The new study’s findings were welcomed by Professor Carol Hodgson, from Monash University’s School of Public Health, who led an Australian-first study of long COVID in 200 people admitted to intensive-care wards with COVID-19. A third of those patients had cognitive dysfunction six months later. “We found there was a huge amount of cognitive dysfunction in survivors of COVID-19,” Hodgson said.
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