THE Covid-19 can make the brain shrink, reduce gray matter in regions that control emotion and memory, and damage areas that control smell, according to a study by the Oxford University. Scientists said the effects were even seen in people who weren’t hospitalized with covid, and more research is needed to find out if the impact can be partially reversed or if it would persist in the long term.
“There is strong evidence for brain-related abnormalities in covid-19,” the researchers said. Even in mild cases, research participants showed “a worsening of executive function” responsible for focus and organization, and on average, brain size shrank by between 0.2% and 2%.
The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal nature, investigated brain changes in 785 participants ages 51 to 81 whose brains were scanned twice, including 401 people who caught covid between the two scans. The second exam was performed an average of 141 days after the first.
The study was carried out when the Alpha variant was dominant in the UK and is unlikely to include anyone infected with the Delta variant. Studies have shown that some people who have had Covid suffered from “mental confusion” that included impaired attention, concentration, information processing speed, and memory.
In Brazil, in a study carried out with 425 patients who recovered from the moderate and severe forms of covid-19, researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP) had already observed a high prevalence of cognitive deficits and psychiatric disorders. Assessments were conducted at Hospital das Clínicas between six and nine months after hospital discharge.
More than half (51.1%) of participants reported having noticed memory decline after infection and another 13.6% developed post-traumatic stress disorder. The complete results of the research, which was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (Fapesp), were published in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry.