The findings, published through Cell Reports Medicine, reveal short- and long-term cognitive decline in other people with COVID-19.
Using a physically powerful dataset collected through Cambridge Brain Sciences’ online clinical research tool, lead researchers Adrian Owen and Conor Wild discovered significant deficiencies in reasoning, speed of thinking, and verbal skills in patients with COVID-19 cases, but no memory loss. function.
“The trend of cognitive decline in those COVID-19 patients resembles that of healthy participants who are sleep deprived,” said Owen, a professor of cognitive neuroscience and imaging at Schulich School of Medicine.
In 2017, Owen and Wild conducted the world’s largest sleep study, with more than 40,000 participants, the same online clinical research tool.
For the COVID-19 brain study, Owen, Wild, and collaborators from Western, the University of Cambridge, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, and the University of Ottawa evaluated about 500 people approximately 3 months after a COVID-19 diagnosis. Reports of COVID-19 ranged from “very mild” to “ventilated ICU. “The researchers found that the severity of cognitive impairment is directly similar to the severity of the initial infection.
“The more severe the symptoms of COVID-19 for the patient, the more severe the cognitive impairment also was,” said Wild, a research associate at Schulich School of Medicine.
The researchers recruited thousands of participants for the study; However, because COVID-19 testing was so rare at the beginning of the pandemic (the study was introduced in June 2020), they were unable to verify who had contracted COVID-19 compared to those who only thought they might have it. As a result, Owen and Wild chose to focus on 478 people, who reported having one medically proven case of COVID-19.
The study also found that the degree of cognitive impairment is not similar to the time between COVID-19 infection and screening, suggesting they could be long-lasting.
“The deficiencies were not minor for other people who were up to 3 months after infection, suggesting that those effects may not diminish in the short term,” Wild said.
Health impact
Participants in the COVID-19 brain experienced particularly high levels of depression and anxiety, with 30% clinical assembly criteria for one or the other, or both.
“These effects on intellectual fitness were not similar to the severity of the original infection or cognitive decline, suggesting that they may be just the result of the pandemic itself, rather than the result of COVID-19 infection,” Dr. Richard said. Swartz of Sunnybrook Health Science Center.
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