Ziyad Al-Aly is a leading researcher and clinical epidemiologist at VA St. Louis Health Care System and Washington University in St. Louis. One significant health issue he has studied during the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘brain fog’. This term is used to describe mental sluggishness, problems with memory, and difficulty thinking.
Four years into the pandemic, plenty of evidence now shows that the SARS-CoV-2 virus affects brain health. Besides brain fog, COVID-19 can cause headaches, seizures, strokes, sleep problems, paralysis, and numerous mental health disorders. Numerous studies are still exploring how exactly the virus affects the brain and cause these problems, and as of now, there are no specific remedies.
Recent research published in the New England Journal of Medicine adds to our understanding of how COVID-19 can affect mental health. The research showed that people infected with COVID-19, regardless of the severity of their symptoms, experienced cognitive declines equivalent to IQ losses.
One such study, which examined nearly 113,000 people who had recovered from COVID-19, found that even those with mild and resolved cases experienced cognitive decline equivalent to losing three IQ points. Those with unresolved symptoms lost six IQ points, while those admitted to intensive care lost nine. Several more studies have shown similar results.
It’s clear from these findings that COVID-19 can have a serious impact on brain health. But experts still don’t know exactly why some people are at greater risk than others, or how these cognitive declines might affect education and productivity levels. Most importantly, it’s still unclear how or if these cognitive declines could influence future rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
What we do know is that COVID-19 should be seen as a brain-affecting virus. The full scale of the problem is still emerging, and solving the mysteries of COVID-19’s impact on the brain will require many more years of global research effort.
