{"id":1087,"date":"2021-07-26T20:34:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T20:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2021-07-26T20:34:25","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T20:34:25","slug":"covid-and-the-brain-researchers-zero-in-on-how-damage-occurs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=1087","title":{"rendered":"COVID and the brain: researchers zero in on how damage occurs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authors: Michael Marshall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How COVID-19 damages the brain is becoming clearer. New evidence suggests that the coronavirus\u2019s assault on the brain could be multipronged: it might attack certain brain cells directly, reduce blood flow to brain tissue or trigger production of immune molecules that can harm brain cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can cause memory loss, strokes and other effects on the brain. The question, says Serena Spudich, a neurologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, is: \u201cCan we intervene early to address these abnormalities so that people don\u2019t have long-term problems?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With so many people affected \u2014 neurological symptoms appeared in 80% of the people hospitalized with COVID-19 who were surveyed in one study1<\/a><\/sup> \u2014 researchers hope that the growing evidence base will point the way to better treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking into the brain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

SARS-CoV-2 can have severe effects: a preprint posted last month2<\/a><\/sup> compared images of people\u2019s brains from before and after they had COVID-19, and found loss of grey matter in several areas of the cerebral cortex. (Preprints are published without peer review.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early in the pandemic, researchers speculated<\/a> that the virus might cause damage by somehow entering the brain and infecting neurons, the cells responsible for transmitting and processing information. But studies have since indicated3<\/a><\/sup> that the virus has difficulty getting past the brain\u2019s defence system \u2014 the blood\u2013brain barrier \u2014 and that it doesn\u2019t necessarily attack neurons in any significant way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For More Information: https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-021-01693-6?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20210722&sap-outbound-id=90D704D0EFF250722F74CEC6E887640B2E9C09C8<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authors: Michael Marshall How COVID-19 damages the brain is becoming clearer. New evidence suggests that the coronavirus\u2019s assault on the brain could be multipronged: it might attack certain brain cells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,155,309,422],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brain-fog","category-etiology","category-memory","category-pathology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}