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Brain fog, fatigue and anxiety in long COVID may be linked to brain inflammation and lower nerve growth factors.
Why do some people recover from COVID-19 while others remain foggy, anxious and exhausted months later?
A small pilot study from Corewell Health looked into this question by comparing long COVID patients to people who had fully recovered.
Published in PLOS One, the researchers found biological differences in brain health and inflammation that help explain lingering symptoms.
The problem with testing long COVID brain symptoms
Since the early days of the pandemic, millions have reported long-term symptoms after COVID-19, with ~30% of those infected continuing to experience problems months later. “Brain fog” is one of the most common complaints, affecting attention, memory and language. But despite these reports, most patients perform within the normal range on standard cognitive tests. This mismatch makes diagnosis harder, and many patients feel dismissed.
Until now, few studies have addressed why some people develop long-term cognitive symptoms while others don’t. Many studies didn’t include proper control groups, often comparing long COVID patients with people who never had COVID at all. Others looked at biomarkers like inflammatory proteins, but they rarely linked them directly to cognitive symptoms.
Persistent symptoms affect people’s ability to work, maintain relationships and feel mentally well. Without clear evidence of what’s happening, patients are often left in limbo.
“These patients experience significant frustration, and their symptoms often may be minimized by friends, family and even the medical community,” said lead author Dr. Michael Lawrence, a neuropsychologist at Corewell Health. --->READ MORE HERE
Millions of "long COVID" patients coping with debilitating "brain fog" and chronic fatigue, who are looking for answers to what's at the root of their illness, received a hopeful sign through a new study released Thursday.
The answers, though somewhat complex, appear to be biological and neurological, authors of the study said. In other words, it's not just in patients' heads.
An estimated 12 million COVID "long-haulers" in the United States experience a range of neurological symptoms such as feeling slow, having difficulty thinking or concentrating, confusion and forgetfulness many months after recovery from the viral infection.
Sufferers have reported up to 200 different symptoms, both mental and physical, the most common of which include brain fog, lingering fatigue and shortness of breath.
The neurological symptoms, for example, can limit those who once exceled at sophisticated mental "multitasking" to doing just one thing at a time, making them far less able to handle stress or tap the mental flexibility needed for their jobs.
Since long COVID first emerged as a recognized syndrome, the hunt has been on to find a "biological mechanism" at the root of the malady. Those efforts got a boost this week with the publication of a small-scale study showing altered levels of a pair of key brain chemicals in patients who complained of symptoms six months after infection.
Researchers from Corewell Health in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Michigan State University said their findings provide more evidence that a biological mechanism is indeed at the root of the cognitive impairments.
The study is the first to directly measure inflammation in long COVID patients and bolsters theories that the pernicious brain fog and fatigue are not just mental issues, but linked to a biological cause that can be objectively assessed, the authors say.
More than 6% of American adults reported they were experiencing long COVID symptoms in 2023, translating to nearly 25 million people. Of those, about half have complained of brain fog -- and at those levels the need to understand and develop health strategies for them is tremendous. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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