Research: Severe illness with Covid can cause memory problems

The severe Covid-19 infections can cause reactions in the patients’ immune system that will result in damage to the brain’s nerve cells, resulting in memory problems and confusion or brain “fog”, while increasing the possibility of long-term problems. This is the conclusion of a new British scientific study, which for the first time found that an unpredictable immune response of the body to the coronavirus increases the frequency destruction of brain neurons and has a strong negative impact on their regeneration rate in the hippocampus region of the brain, which is vital for memory and learning.

The researchers of the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience of the Royal College (King’s) in London, led by Dr. Alessandra Borsini, who made the relevant publication in the journal of biological psychiatry “Molecular Psychiatry”, according to the British “Guardian”, analyzed blood samples from 36 patients with Covid-19 who had required hospitalization. It was found that in these the levels of the protein interleukin IL-6, which is produced by the body’s defenses, were at least 15 times greater than normal levels.

But in the Covid-19 patients who had experienced delirium (extreme confusion), the increase in IL-6 was even more dramatic, at about six times the level of the rest of the Covid-19 patients. Almost one in three patients with coronavirus admitted to the hospital show confusion, while the percentage reaches two in three in serious cases of illness with Covid-19.

The scientists investigated in their laboratory whether high levels of interleukin-6 might affect neurons in the hippocampus and found that blood from patients who had experienced brain fog markedly increased the normal rate of neuronal death while decreasing the rate birth of new nerve cells. This resulting damage is thought to also account for the induction of delirium or “fog” (confusion).

Although the findings are considered preliminary and need confirmation, they show that Covid-19 can trigger neurological problems, without the need for the coronavirus to infect the brain itself, since brain damage is caused by the body’s own immune response. The study also shows that some drugs (antibodies or JAK inhibitors), already used against dangerous immune overreactions in Covid-19 cases, can help to reduce the chance of neurological problems.

Elderly patients are more prone and vulnerable to developing confusion, which can last for months and, among other things, increase the risk of dementia. Measuring the level of the IL-6 protein in the blood, as well as the inflammatory cytokines IL-12 and IL-13 that it releases in the wake of the immune reaction, can guide doctors to a more personalized treatment, whether acute or chronic. long Covid-19, according to the researchers.

See here scientific publication

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.