In the UK, 2.9% of the population, or an estimated 1.9 million persons living in private households, reported having lengthy COVID as of March of last year.
Researchers believe that certain coronavirus infections resulted in disruptions to the blood-brain barrier, which may have contributed to the cognitive problems seen by persons who are afflicted with the illness.
Serum and plasma samples from 25 individuals prior to the pandemic as well as from 76 patients hospitalized with coronaviurus in March or April 2020 were analyzed by researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the research center FutureNeuro.
Their results, which were published in Nature Neuroscience, demonstrated that brain fog was experienced by patients with long-term COVID who had leaks in the blood-brain barrier but not by those who did not.
Matthew Campbell, the principle investigator at FutureNeuro and a genetics professor and head of genetics at Trinity, praised the work for indicating a potential cause of the illness.
He stated, “We have been able to demonstrate for the first time that leaky blood vessels in the human brain, working in concert with an overactive immune system, may be the primary causes of the brain fog associated with prolonged COVID.
“This is critically important, as understanding the underlying cause of these conditions will allow us to develop targeted therapies for patients in the future.”
