If You Had A COVID Infection, You Could Have Brain Damage!

Scientists believe there is a link between COVID-19 and long-lasting, even permanent brain damage!

“Brain fog” is often reported as one of the “long-haul” symptoms of COVID, with memory and cognitive issues existing long after the victims have otherwise recovered from the virus. A group of researchers with from Yale University and the National Institutes of Health just published a paper that took an in-depth look at how COVID affects the brain.

The scientists discovered that the virus doesn’t cause extensive infection in the brain. Instead, the neurological effects seem to be caused by “friendly fire” — an exaggerated or misguided immune response, as well as damage to the brain’s blood vessels, according to Dr. Serena Spudich of the Yale School of Medicine and Dr. Avindra Nath of the National Institutes of Health.

“Immune activation and inflammation within the central nervous system is the primary driver of neurologic disease in acute COVID-19,” they write in their study, which was published in the journal Science. 

While these kinds of neurological issues have mostly been listed among long-haul victims and elderly victims, or anyone who had an extreme case of COVID, the researchers say that even young and healthy people with mild initial disease can develop these symptoms, which range from brief and mild headaches to persistent mental fatigue, depression and even psychosis. “Brain fog” is one of the most common problems, affecting about two-thirds of patients at a post-COVID clinic in New York, according to another recent study. It is not known whether unforeseen problems may emerge years after initial infection.

The conclusions are supported by newly published UC San Francisco research, which found that some patients who develop new cognitive symptoms after a mild bout of COVID have abnormalities in their cerebrospinal fluid similar to those found in people with other infectious diseases.

“It’s possible that the immune system, stimulated by the virus, may be functioning in an unintended pathological way,” said Dr. Joanna Hellmuth, principal investigator of the UCSF Coronavirus Neurocognitive Study.

How Can COVID Cause Brain Damage?

As to how the virus causes brain damage, the scientists say several things can go wrong once the virus enters the brain, even if it does so in only small amounts.

The immune system may inadvertently deploy misguided antibodies that attack not just the virus but our own tissues and organs. A similar phenomenon is seen in autoimmune diseases like lupus.

Something else can also be in play here; your immune system goes into an overactive “all hands on deck” mode in response to the virus. Frustrated when targeted antibodies don’t get rid of the virus, it uses cells called monocytes and macrophages in a carpet-bombing strategy. Key components of the immune system, these cells are linked to other inflammatory disorders — and can cause long-term damage. They’ve been found in the brains of autopsied COVID-19 victims.

This kind of immune-induced inflammation has been identified as the cause behind other COVID-related medical crises. For instance, children can develop a multisystem inflammatory syndrome. In elders, a sudden inflammation of the lungs called a “cytokine storm” can be lethal.

In the brain, “if you get small amounts of inflammation, you can recover,” said Dr. Avindra Nath of the National Institutes of Health. “But if you have prolonged inflammation or if you have pretty intense inflammation for shorter periods of time, that can cause permanent damage.”

The researchers say it is even possible that the virus causes direct damage to the brain’s vascular system. For instance, the infection can cause small clots in damaged blood vessels, increasing the risk of stroke. It can also cause leaks, so blood seeps out into the brain, causing inflammation and cellular damage.

The growing body of research into the link between COVID and brain disorders could eventually lead to treatments.

“We hope that understanding these dysregulated biological pathways will allow us to develop targeted therapies to treat our Long COVID patients,” said Dr. Aruna Subramanian, chief of the Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine.