How does COVID-19 change our brains? -Life Health

The researchers found that infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was associated with less gray matter, where many brain cells are located.

Brain imaging (shown) can reveal when certain areas of the brain grow or shrink after patient infected with COVID-19

This is one of the first studies to look at structural changes in the brain before and after infection SARS-CoV-2. It’s done by an expert team of brain imaging researchers.

In the study, 785 participants underwent two MRI scans. Between those scans, 401 people contracted COVID-19 and 384 people don’t. By comparing before and after scans, the researchers were able to detect changes in people with COVID-19 and compare those changes with those without the infection.

After contracting COVID-19, the average person has less gray matter in the parts of the brain that process smell.

However, neuroscientist Emily Jacobs of the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA) said: “The human brain is very active. Less does not mean worse, necessarily less and more than none. means better”.

Jacobs and her colleagues found that brain regions grow and contract over the course of several days, changes related to hormone levels during the menstrual cycle. This change was found in the hippocampus, a brain structure associated with learning and memory, and adjacent areas.

Some brain regions involved in the sense of smell become smaller (red and yellow areas) after infection with SARS-CoV-2

Similarly, pregnancy and the subsequent hormonal changes can also change the brain. This process appears to be the second stage of brain maturation, much like the screening process that occurs in adolescence.

Besides, many evidences also show that men’s brains also change day by day.

So is infection with SARS-CoV-2 harmful to the brain, and if so, how bad? Currently, scientists cannot answer these questions exactly. Scientist Gwenaëlle Douaud, of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Oxford (UK), said: “We were quite surprised to see such a clear difference in the brain, even with COVID-19 infection- 19 in the mild form. The worry is that this damage will be prolonged and make infected people more susceptible to brain diseases in the future.”

But the brain changes caused by COVID-19 may not be long-lasting, says Douaud. Ms Dounaud notes that the brain can “reorganize and heal itself to some degree, even in older people.

Another study has shown that nasal congestion can also lead to brain changes, but these brain changes are reversed when the sense of smell is restored.

Repeating MRI scans of the brain study participants in a few years should help clear up the question of permanence. But for now, there’s no way we can say for sure whether these brain changes will last – and what they might mean for a healthy brain.

A study from 2016 found that: Pregnancy is associated with a decrease in certain parts of the mother’s brain (the red and yellow areas are highlighted on four different views of the brain).

“We don’t currently distinguish whether it is a normal change or a harmful change,” admitted scientist Jacobs.

Until scientists learn more about the brain, including which brain changes are normal, reversible, or insignificant, we can’t know what’s worrying COVID-19 can cause.