Covid can shrink brain and damage its tissue, finds research

The first major study to compare brain scans of people before and after they catch Covid has shown that there is damage to the brain months after the positive test.

The study identified 16 new genetic variants associated with severe illness, and named a number of existing drugs that could be used to prevent patients from getting severely ill, some of which are already in clinical trials.

The studies shed light on the biological mechanisms that underpin the disease.

785 people between the ages of 51 and 81 who had received brain scans before and during the Pandemic were studied by researchers at the University of Oxford. Between the two scans, more than half of them tested positive for Covid.

The people who tested positive for Covid had more grey matter and brain shrinkage than the other people. The parahippocampal gyrus and the cerebellum were lost by those who had Covid.

Symptoms of smell loss may be caused by disrupted signal processing. The people who were infections scored lower on a mental skills test. Lower scores were associated with a loss of brain tissue in the parts of the cerebellum involved in mental ability.

The research suggested that the effects were more pronounced in older people and those who were hospitalized for the disease.

There are more scans that need to be done to determine if the brain changes are permanent or not.

The brain is plastic, which means that it can heal itself even in older people.

The researchers led by Dr Kenneth Baillie, a consultant in critical care medicine at the University of Edinburgh, were able to sequence the genomes of 7,491 Covid patients admitted to intensive care units in the UK. The researchers compared the genes of people who had not been exposed to Covid and those who had experienced mild Covid.

The study found 16 new genetic variations associated with admission to intensive care.

The involvement of seven other genes that the team identified in earlier studies was also confirmed. Data published last week showed that it reduced the risk of death from severe Covid by about a fifth.

There is a small change in GM-CSF that helps the immune cells in the lungs to fight infections. The drug otilimab is being tested in people with Covid.

The most common type of the inherited bleeding disorder haemophilia is disrupted by variations in genes that control the levels of a central component of blood clotting. Abnormal clotting in response to Covid could result in reduced oxygen supply to critical organs.

Some people get no symptoms while others get life-threatening Covid-19. This gives us a deep understanding of the process of disease and is a big step forward in finding more effective treatments.

It's true that we understand the mechanisms of Covid better than the other syndromes we treat in intensive care. The way to tackle those problems in the future is being shown by Covid-19.