A new study conducted by British researchers and published this Monday, March 7 in the journal Nature highlights a new consequence of Covid: infected patients would have brain damage for some. The scientists analyzed the brain scans of 785 patients. The Covid still presents many mysteries. In a study published on Monday March 7 in the scientific journal Nature, around twenty British researchers from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom shared discoveries on the effects of an infection with SARS-CoV-2. In France, teams from the Institut Pasteur were the first, in 2021, to show that the virus could have a tropism for the central nervous system.
Neurological symptoms in more than 80% of patients
“There is strong evidence of pathologies linked to the brain” after contamination with Covid-19″, say the scientists who carried out this study. The researchers explain that those affected by these lesions develop loss of taste and smell : symptoms observed over a prolonged period in more than 80% of patients with severe or non-serious forms. And this loss of taste and smell would not be without consequence for the infected patients: the latter would then experience a “loss of gray matter in regions of the brain related to olfaction”.
How did the scientists conduct their study?
The group of scientists actually analyzed the brain scans of 785 people, aged 51 to 81, of whom 401 were infected with Covid. The study shows that people lose between 0.2% and 0.3% of gray matter each year in regions related to memory. The virus would be likely to damage between 0.2 and 2% of brain tissue. In previous studies that have been carried out on the effects of the coronavirus, brain damage has never been mentioned. Published on August 18, another study by British researchers already showed that in some patients with Covid-19, a atrophy of the gray matter of the brain is observed. And the results of this study are the same in people hospitalized with severe forms as in people who have shown few symptoms. This atrophy which is usually observed during aging, as LCI points out. In October, a study indicated that people who had contracted Covid would have memory and concentration problems months after their infection.
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