For those with long COVID who were previously in the intensive care unit and may have undergone ventilation, hypoxic brain injury may result from the lack of oxygen to the brain. COVID damages the brain and causes injury. Jackson, who began treating Whitley in February 2023, said that it makes more sense to call brain fog a brain impairment or an acquired brain injury (ABI) because it doesn't occur gradually. Jackson, PsyD, a neuropsychiatrist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and author of a new book, Clearing the Fog: From Surviving to Thriving With Long COVID ― A Practical Guide. 'There's not a lot of imprecision in the term because it might mean different things to different patients,' said James C. There are no standard tests for it, nor are there guidelines for symptom management or treatment. That, in turn, makes it harder for doctors to diagnose and treat it. Many clinicians agree that the term is vague and often doesn't truly represent the condition. 5 However, other longterm effects of the COVID19 on the brain may be subtler persistent impairment in sustained attention or cognition are two examples. A reported 46% of those diagnosed with long COVID complain of brain fog or a loss of memory. COVID19 may damage the brain in various ways encephalitis and cerebrovascular accidents have been reported in the literature before. Sometimes I feel like a shell of my former self.'īrain fog is among the most common symptoms of long COVID, and also one of the most poorly understood. 'It makes you realize that you're nothing without your brain.

This could be addressed by targeting the underlying mechanism responsible for barrier dysfunction.'I just can't think anymore,' she said. Researchers hope to develop novel therapeutic strategies for addressing cognitive symptoms associated with various diseases. Furthermore, it could also help individuals with other neurological conditions. Prof Campbell believes that restoring the integrity of the blood-brain barrier could alleviate brain fog in COVID-19 patients. The implications of these findings extend far beyond COVID-19.

This suggests that a compromised blood-brain barrier may predispose individuals to the development of brain fog following COVID-19 infection. In contrast, those who had recovered from COVID-19 or were asymptomatic did not show the same barrier dysfunction. The results were striking: long COVID patients experiencing brain fog exhibited clear signs of a leaky blood-brain barrier. Participants underwent MRI scans with intravenous dye administration to further explore this phenomenon. This breakdown could allow harmful substances to infiltrate the brain, triggering cognitive disturbances. Typically confined to the brain, this protein appearing in the bloodstream suggests a breach in the blood-brain barrier’s defenses. They discovered elevated protein levels called S100β in patients reporting brain fog. In their investigation, the team analyzed serum and plasma samples from COVID-19 patients, both with and without brain fog symptoms. “If that is off balance then it can drive changes in neural function and if this happens in brain regions that allow for memory consolidation/storage then it can wreak havoc,” Prof Campbell added.

“It’s all about regulating a balance of material in blood compared to brain,” Prof Matthew Campbell, co-author of the research at Trinity College Dublin, told the Guardian. The blood-brain barrier serves as a vital checkpoint, tightly regulating the passage of substances between the bloodstream and the brain.

Treatment for long covid brain fog