Coronavirus: What does Covid-19 do to the brain?

Coronavirus: What does Covid-19 do to the brain?

LAHORE (Web Desk) - Stroke, delirium, anxiety, confusion, fatigue - the list goes on. If you think Covid-19 is just a respiratory disease, think again.

As each week passes, it is becoming increasingly clear that coronavirus can trigger a huge range of neurological problems.

But it’s at the more severe end that there is most concern.

A study in the Lancet Psychiatry found brain complications in 125 seriously ill coronavirus patients in UK hospitals. Nearly half had suffered a stroke due to a blood clot while others had brain inflammation, psychosis, or dementia-like symptoms.

One of the report authors, Prof Tom Solomon of the University of Liverpool, told, "It’s clear now that this virus does cause problems in the brain whereas initially we thought it was all about the lungs. Part of it is due to lack of oxygen to the brain. But there appear to be many other factors, such as problems with blood clotting and a hyper-inflammatory response of the immune system. We should also ask whether the virus itself is infecting the brain."

In Canada, neuroscientist Prof Adrian Owen has launched a global online study of how the virus affects cognition. Owen said: "We already know that ICU survivors are vulnerable to cognitive impairment. So as the number of recovered Covid-19 patients continues to climb, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that getting sent home from the ICU is not the end for these people. It’s just the beginning of their recovery."

"Sars and Mers, which are both caused by coronaviruses, were associated with some neurological disease, but we’ve never seen anything like this before," Dr Michael Zandi, consultant neurologist at the NHNN, told. "The closest comparison is the 1918 flu pandemic. We saw then there was a lot of brain disease and problems that emerged over the next 10-20 years."