CHICAGO — Coronavirus brain damage: Two ways COVID-19 can cause long COVID explained.

At least one-third of people who have had COVID-19 experience neurological complications, according to the chief of Neuroinfectious Diseases and Global Neurology at Northwestern Medicine, and Axios reports that scientists have established two possible mechanisms behind the phenomenon.

A study in science journal Nature found that SARS-CoV-2 has the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier which usually tightly regulates the movement of molecules, ions and cells between the blood and the central nervous system, resulting in degradation.

A U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information study, meanwhile, found that brain-barrier cells of the choroid plexus can become inflamed, relay inflammation onto glial cells and cause damage to neurons.

Without indicating which of these mechanisms was responsible, a separate study in Nature found even people with mild COVID-19 infections showed evidence of cognitive decline, degeneration in parts of the brain and brain shrinkage.



SOURCES: Axios, Nature, U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information
https://www.axios.com/covid-brain-fog...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...