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Recovering patients around the world have reported many persistent neurological symptoms, including fatigue, memory loss and confusion, dubbed “brain fog” or “brain Covid”. Scientists may have now found the culprit.
“We were first approached by our colleagues in intensive care medicine, who had observed severe delirium in many patients hospitalized for Covid-19”, says neuro-oncologist Jessica Wilcox of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
His team’s initial research ultimately resulted in a multidisciplinary collaboration between specialists in neurology, intensive care, microbiology and neuroradiology to uncover the root cause of this “ brain fog. ”
Researchers examined the cerebrospinal fluid of 18 cancer patients with some form of neurological impairment after contracting Covid-19.
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Some degree of ongoing viral infection was initially suspected but ruled out after microbiological analysis revealed that the patients had indeed recovered from the disease and no longer had the virus in their cerebrospinal fluid.
What they found in the liquid, however, may provide insight into some of the more debilitating symptoms of the so-called ‘long Covid’.
“We found that these patients had persistent inflammation and high levels of cytokines in their cerebrospinal fluid, which explained the symptoms they were exhibiting.” says co-first author of the study, Jan Remsik.
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Cytokines are messenger proteins in the immune system. They can be triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and triggered into a frenzy known as a “cytokine storm” of potentially fatal excessive inflammation. Cytokine storms have been responsible for the most severe cases of Covid-19 seen in intensive care units around the world.
A similar phenomenon has been observed in patients undergoing certain types of immunotherapy treatments, such as cancer, with the suspicion that cytokines are somehow moving to the brain, causing a series of neurological symptoms. similar to those found in the “ Covid brain ”. .
While more study is needed, initial research suggests that additional treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs may alleviate ‘brain fog’ in post-Covid patients. The suggestion is that the nervous and immune systems may be more closely related than previously thought.
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