Catching COVID might cause brain shrinkage in some people, new study finds. Here’s how
Along with losing your sense of smell and taste, a new study suggests that catching COVID-19 could also impact your memory – and even potentially reduce the size of your brain.
A new peer-reviewed study published on March 7 by researchers in the journal Nature shows that COVID-19 could lead to “brain-related abnormalities.”
But experts warn more research is needed to determine what long-term implications, if any, there could be for affected patients.
“To make a conclusion that this has some long-term clinical implications for the patients I think is a stretch,” Dr. Serena Spudich, chief of neurological infections and global neurology at the Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, told the New York Times.
The study observed brain changes in 785 UK Biobank participants aged 51 to 81 years old.
UK Biobank is a “large-scale biomedical database and research resource, containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million UK participants,” according to its website.
Participants’ brains were observed twice, approximately three years apart. In between the two scans, 401 participants contracted COVID-19, the study shows.
“There is strong evidence for brain-related abnormalities in COVID-19,” researchers wrote in the study. “Our longitudinal analyses revealed a significant, deleterious impact associated with SARS-CoV-2.”
Researchers found greater reduction in gray matter thickness in areas of the brain responsible for memory – the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus, the study shows.
According to the researchers, older adults can lose between 0.2% to 0.3% of gray matter every year. Participants in the study who had COVID-19 lost anywhere from 0.2% to 2% of gray matter throughout the brain, the study shows.
Findings also revealed “greater changes in markers of tissue damage” in regions responsible for the sense of smell.
One of the most significant changes witnessed by researchers was the reduction in total brain size.
Researchers noted, however, that their statistics represent an average effect — meaning not every infected participant will display “brain abnormalities.”
And whether the potential impact can be partially reversed or persist in the long term “remains to be investigated,” scientists said.
“To me, this is pretty convincing evidence that something changes in brains of this overall group of people with COVID-19,” Spudich told The New York Times.
But she added: “We don’t want to scare the public and have them think, ‘Oh, this is proof that everyone’s going to have brain damage and not be able to function.”
“I’m very hopeful that basic research is going to give new answers to the mechanisms as to how the brain is impaired and the potential for new treatment,” Gladstone Institutes Senior Investigator Katerina Akassoglou told ABC 7.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Catching COVID might cause brain shrinkage in some people, new study finds. Here’s how."
