United States: A new study suggests that damage to the brainstem may be causing the physical and mental problems seen in Long COVID. Brain scans of 30 patients with Long COVID showed damage in the part of the brain that controls breathing, tiredness, and anxiety.
“The brainstem is the control center between our conscious mind and what is going on physically,” said co-lead author James Rowe, a senior research fellow in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Clinical Neurosciences.
This will help to explain and treat the Long COVID more effectively at a time when scientists had not seen or perhaps fully comprehended how the brainstem altered due to COVID-19.
As reported by the HealthDay, In background notes, the researchers said post-mortem examinations of individuals who succumbed to severe COVID-19 early in the outbreak revealed alterations in their brainstem.
“Patients who had a severe COVID illness in the first wave had certain scans showing structural changes to the brain that persisted for 12 weeks later, as a result of the immune response, according to the researchers,”
But measuring that immune response is difficult in living people,” Rowe said. “We are unable to see inside the brain with the kind of chemical and physical detail using normal hospital type MRI scanners.”
Therefore, the research team decided to try higher field strength MRI scanners called 7-Tesla scanners and discovered that COVID infection resulted in inflammation damage in several areas of the brainstem.
The abnormalities became evident several weeks after hospital stay, usually in the parts of the brain involved in regulating the respiratory rate, according to the scientists.
“Because we know there are abnormalities in the areas of the brain that control breathing, it is very likely that long-term symptoms are caused by inflammation in the brain stem after COVID infection,” said co-author Dr Catarina Rua, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Cambridge.
“These effects are beyond basic age and sex endophenotypes, manifest more prominently in previous COVID-19 severe disease, and fundamentally, connect with damage in brain regions referred to as ‘fatigue and anxiety’.”
“These diseases are tightly linked to the brain, and depression and anxiety levels were significantly higher in the patients with the most severe immune response.”
Rowe said in a Cambridge news release. “Changes in the brainstem caused by the COVID-19 infection could also lead to poor mental health outcomes, because of the tight connection between physical and the mental health ofcourse.
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