Possible suspects are antibodies that can mistakenly attack key proteins in the brain, the researchers say. So far, the analyses can’t pinpoint the precise changes that may be important. But 10 of the 13 people who did have lasting symptoms had abnormalities in their fluid, some of which point to immune system reactions. The four people without cognitive symptoms had normal cerebrospinal fluid. She and her colleagues looked for differences in the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord in 13 people who had lingering cognitive symptoms from COVID-19 and four people who had no cognitive symptoms. “Maybe the same thing is happening in COVID,” Hellmuth says. HIV-related cognitive symptoms have been linked to immune activation in the body, including the brain. The infections paint “the same exact clinical picture,” she says. As someone who had studied the effects of HIV on the brain, she quickly noted similarities in the neurological symptoms of HIV and COVID-19. Cognitive neurologist Joanna Hellmuth at the University of California, San Francisco had a head start. To figure out ways to treat people for the fuzzy thinking, headaches and fatigue that hang around after a bout with COVID-19, scientists are racing to figure out what’s causing these symptoms ( SN: 4/27/21). Sign up for e-mail updates on the latest coronavirus news and research “We are now faced with a public health crisis,” he says. Millions of people have been infected, says neurologist Avindra Nath of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. What’s different with COVID-19 is the scope of the problem. Immune systems gone awry have been implicated in cognitive problems that come with other viral infections such as HIV and influenza, with disorders such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, and even from the damaging effects of chemotherapy. These reverberating effects may lead to fatigue, trouble thinking, difficulty remembering and even pain, months after the infection is gone. But the immune system’s response to even mild cases can affect the brain, new preliminary studies suggest. SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, doesn’t usually make it into the brain directly. A tussle with COVID-19 can leave people’s brains fuzzy.
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