COVID Patients With ‘Brain Fog’ Show Signs of Increased Protein Level Involved in Clotting, Leaky Blood-Brain Barrier

(Photo : Wikimedia Commons/Gustavo Basso)
COVID Patients With 'Brain Fog' Show Signs of Increased Protein Level Involved in Clotting, Leaky Blood-Brain Barrier

A number of individuals who contracted the COVID-19 virus reported "brain fog." It has been learned that the condition has links to blood-brain barriers.

COVID-19 Patients With Brain Fog Have Leaky Blood-Brain Barriers

A new study looked into the reports of COVID patients with "brain fog." The condition involved forgetfulness and difficulty in concentrating. The researchers learned that it was down to a leaky blood-brain barrier and a protein not normally found in the blood.

The researchers recruited 22 individuals with prolonged COVID-19, 11 of whom had experienced brain fog, and 10 individuals who had recovered from COVID-19. At that moment, no one had been hospitalized for COVID or had gotten the COVID vaccine.

These subjects had an intravenous dye injection prior to their MRI scan. According to the findings, long-term COVID patients who experienced brain fog did exhibit symptoms of a leaky blood-brain barrier, but neither did those who had recovered or did not have this symptom.

The barrier regulates what materials and chemicals enter and leave the brain. The main focus, according to Prof. Matthew Campbell, a Trinity College Dublin co-author of the study, is controlling the ratio of blood to brain material.

According to him, if that is out of balance, it may cause alterations in neural function. If this occurs in parts of the brain that are involved in memory consolidation and storage, it may have disastrous effects.

The reason the symptom did not appear in all patients, according to Campbell, was that individuals with a tighter blood-brain barrier could be more shielded from brain fog should they develop long-term COVID.

Subgroup analysis of the participants revealed that long-term COVID patients with cognitive fog also exhibited elevated levels of clotting-related proteins.

Researchers found that samples from 14 Covid patients who self-reported having brain fog had higher levels of a protein called S100β than samples from people who had not taken Covid or from Covid patients who did not have this symptom.

Since this protein is generally not present in the blood and is produced by brain cells, it is possible that the blood-brain barrier was compromised in these patients.

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Does COVID Affect the Brain?

Neurological side symptoms from a coronavirus infection can persist long after the acute stage, such as fatigue, headaches, and memory problems. Scientists first thought that a direct brain infection would be the main culprit behind the epidemic. However, the exact mechanism by which COVID-19 induces neurological symptoms remains unknown to experts.

Dr. Helena Radbruch, head of the Chronic Neuroinflammation working group at the Department of Neuropathology at Charité, conducted a study and noted that there was "no clear evidence that coronavirus can persist in the brain" much more grow in it. Radbruch said they didn't find any neurons infected with SARS-CoV-2. So, they believed that immune cells entered the body, took up the virus, and made their way to the brain. She notes that the virus is still in them, but it doesn't affect brain tissue. Hence, while the coronavirus has spread to other bodily cells, it has not reached the brain.