Long Covid: New research into effects on brain and heart

How covid brain fog may overlap with 'chemo brain' and Alzheimer's People with "chemo brain" and covid brain fog could not seem more different: Those with "chemo brain" have a life-threatening disease for which they've taken toxic drugs or radiation. Many of those with covid brain fog, in contrast, describe themselves as previously healthy people who have had a relatively mild infection that felt like a cold. So when Stanford University neuroscientist Michelle Monje began studies on long covid, she was fascinated to find similar changes among patients in both g YahooNews

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People with "chemo brain" and covid brain fog could not seem more different: Those with "chemo brain" have a life-threatening disease for which they've taken toxic drugs or radiation. Many of those with covid brain fog, in contrast, describe themselves as previously healthy people who have had a relatively mild infection that felt like a cold.

So when Stanford University neuroscientist Michelle Monje began studies on long covid, she was fascinated to find similar changes among patients in both groups, in specialized brain cells that serve as the organ's surveillance and defense system. ...

In cancer patients undergoing treatment, a malfunction in those same cells, known as microglia, are believed to be a cause of the fuzzy thinking that many describe. Scientists have also theorized that in Alzheimer's disease, these cells may be impeded, making it difficult for them to counteract the cellular wear and tear of aging.

Monje's project is part of a crucial and growing body of research that suggests similarities in the mechanisms of post-covid cognitive changes and other long-studied brain conditions, including "chemo brain," Alzheimer's and other post-viral syndromes following infections with influenza, Epstein-Barr, HIV or Ebola.

"There is humongous overlap" between long covid and these other conditions, said Avindra Nath, intramural clinical director of neurological disorders and stroke unit of the National Institutes of Health.

Pre-covid, much of the medical research into brains (as well as other organs) was siloed by disease. But during the pandemic, as diverse scientists banded together to understand a complex, multi-organ disease, commonalities among the conditions began coming to light.

One such collaboration - among Monje, a recent MacArthur "genius" grant recipient; Yale's Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist who has become one of the leading voices on the coronavirus; and David Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York - has led to the discovery that the brain inflammation from covid-19 looks a lot like the inflammation after cancer therapy.

Monje believes that knowing those similarities gives the field of research into long covid "a real foundation." She's optimistic that some of the symptoms people are experiencing post-covid are reversible, and there's already talk about testing drugs in clinical trials to treat "chemo brain" for those suffering from severe covid brain fog. ...