A major study on the impact of COVID-19 on the brain indicates even a mild case can significantly affect the complex organ, thinning tissue and disrupting functions that control smell and some cognitive abilities.
The findings are sobering for the nearly 2 million New Jersey residents — and 80 million Americans — who have contracted the coronavirus.
The study, published in the journal Nature and described as the first detailed look into the neurological impacts of mild COVID-19, reveal a reduction in brain size and gray matter as well as tissue damage in areas linked to smell, taste and memory among those who had the coronavirus. Those patients also required more time to complete cognitive tests, such as trail-making.
Researchers examined brain scans of 785 people in Great Britain — roughly half had contracted COVID-19 between March 2020 and April 2021 and half had not. They compared scans that had been conducted before the infected participants, who ranged in age from 51 to 81, had contracted the virus with scans that were done nearly five months after the patients were diagnosed.
New scans on volunteers who did not have COVID-19 showed no marked changes, the researchers said.
“Whether this deleterious impact can be partially reversed, or whether these effects will persist in the long term, remains to be investigated with additional follow-up,” the researchers said.
Neurology experts call the results significant, although — like the researchers who conducted the study — they caution that further data needs to be collected before drawing definitive conclusions.
“It’s remarkable,” said Dr. Kyra Blatt, a neurologist with RWJ Barnabas Medical Group. “It looks like the areas that are affected lose volume, and they seem to lose connectivity as well as possible function.
“And then they used neurocognitive testing, which we’ve been using for years here at RWJ Barnabas. What they were seeing was that even some of the places in the brain that were not directly affected by COVID, but were connected and are important for cognition, were also affected.”
Blatt noted that while some of the changes were modest, “they were there.”
The study covered those
