New Covid study from UK shows brain damage - what do you make of this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v3?fbclid=IwAR0wvhudSPWAriuTm3oO0V3ZfZzO61p_QFN49DK-DjBrW2MOKQRcI5vNsFs

A recent study from the UK reviewed brain scans of 785 people from before and after the pandemic began (a strength of the study is they compared scans of the *same* people, and included a control group) to measure changes to the brain across time. It study found that the people who had tested positive for COVID had significant brain damage, including loss of gray matter among other damages to brain tissue. The pathological changes to the brain were matched by evidence of cognitive decline in tests that assessed the cognitive function of the cohort. The findings held firm even with those who had mild cases of COVID.

Note that this is pre-print paper that is undergoing peer review.

I’m trying to decide whether to send my unvaxxed kid to school Monday and am so demoralized.

Do you have a child 51 or older?

"We studied the possible brain changes associated with the coronavirus infection using multimodal MRI data from 785 adult participants (aged 51–81)."

You think that coincidentally they picked a lower boundary for age that's where this side effect cuts off? That because they didn't look for this in 50 year olds, then 50 year old must not exhibit this symptom?

No, but I wouldn't assume one way or another that it impacts children the same way. Are you always so literal?

The only thing I would assume from this is that more research is needed.

But, I generally try to protect my kids from things that have a chance of being harmful. I don't wait to protect them until I know for sure. The reality is that there is a lot we don't know about long term effects of covid on kids, and yet many people have decided that they can assume it's a "mild cold", or that it's not harmful.

I have a DC that caught COVID at age 19. Mild course of illness for about 5 days. Now, 1.5 years later, DC has been diagnosed with Long COVID. Neuropsychological testing shows cognitive deficits of over 2 standard deviations - very significant. It has an impact on college and work, and it creates significant stress because DC recognizes that DC cannot do the same things as before.

As a result, we are doing everything possible to protect DC2 from illness. I kept DC 2 home from school the week before Xmas when our school had 70+ cases. I am genuinely worried about sending DC2 back to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v3?fbclid=IwAR0wvhudSPWAriuTm3oO0V3ZfZzO61p_QFN49DK-DjBrW2MOKQRcI5vNsFs

A recent study from the UK reviewed brain scans of 785 people from before and after the pandemic began (a strength of the study is they compared scans of the *same* people, and included a control group) to measure changes to the brain across time. It study found that the people who had tested positive for COVID had significant brain damage, including loss of gray matter among other damages to brain tissue. The pathological changes to the brain were matched by evidence of cognitive decline in tests that assessed the cognitive function of the cohort. The findings held firm even with those who had mild cases of COVID.

Note that this is pre-print paper that is undergoing peer review.

I’m trying to decide whether to send my unvaxxed kid to school Monday and am so demoralized.

Do you have a child 51 or older?

"We studied the possible brain changes associated with the coronavirus infection using multimodal MRI data from 785 adult participants (aged 51–81)."

You think that coincidentally they picked a lower boundary for age that's where this side effect cuts off? That because they didn't look for this in 50 year olds, then 50 year old must not exhibit this symptom?

No, but I wouldn't assume one way or another that it impacts children the same way. Are you always so literal?

The only thing I would assume from this is that more research is needed.

But, I generally try to protect my kids from things that have a chance of being harmful. I don't wait to protect them until I know for sure. The reality is that there is a lot we don't know about long term effects of covid on kids, and yet many people have decided that they can assume it's a "mild cold", or that it's not harmful.

I have a DC that caught COVID at age 19. Mild course of illness for about 5 days. Now, 1.5 years later, DC has been diagnosed with Long COVID. Neuropsychological testing shows cognitive deficits of over 2 standard deviations - very significant. It has an impact on college and work, and it creates significant stress because DC recognizes that DC cannot do the same things as before.

As a result, we are doing everything possible to protect DC2 from illness. I kept DC 2 home from school the week before Xmas when our school had 70+ cases. I am genuinely worried about sending DC2 back to school.

Im so sorry PP.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I’m so sorry PP. can you explain to those of us who don’t know what 2 standard deviations means in terms of her deficits? It doesn’t sound good…

To the other Pp who asked, my child is 4 and technically in preschool, not school, so that’s why they are not vaxxed.

[Anonymous]

You are agonizing over whether to send a 4 year old to a few hours of preschool next week? Really?

[Anonymous]

My husband’s grandfather died as a relatively young man (in his 30s) of Parkinson’s developed due to the 1918 Flu, which he had and recovered from as a teenager or young 20-something.
My understanding is that the 1918 flu evolved into less dangerous flu plus people acquired some level of community immunity to it that made it less severe when the evolved strains hit them, so you didn’t see that kind of neurological effect with later iterations of the flu.

I am extremely interested in seeing whether they see the same effects in people vaccinated who had breakthrough infections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m so sorry PP. can you explain to those of us who don’t know what 2 standard deviations means in terms of her deficits? It doesn’t sound good…

To the other Pp who asked, my child is 4 and technically in preschool, not school, so that’s why they are not vaxxed.

She can’t because she’s lying

[Anonymous]

Totally plausible but not that new.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782954/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally plausible but not that new.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782954/

This. Run these same tests against all the myriad of viruses we normally catch and show me the comparison

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally think its crap

Based on what? What are your credentials again?

Based on the massive back-pedaling being done on other stories like this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if true. What can we possibly do about it at this point. You get va$xinated that’s it. You still may get it and maybe there are some long term effects but not the type that will prevent you from living a normal life

Germany's latest study shows that almost everyone who has gotten the new var*ant was va$xinated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if true. What can we possibly do about it at this point. You get va$xinated that’s it. You still may get it and maybe there are some long term effects but not the type that will prevent you from living a normal life

Germany's latest study shows that almost everyone who has gotten the new var*ant was va$xinated.

Why aren’t you spelling the actual words? It makes you seem so nutty.

[Anonymous]

Neuroscientist here. So far I’ve only read the abstract. I’ll have to look for the full text version on a computer in the next few days. Does anyone who has read the full test know whether the participants in this study all experienced hyposmia or anosmia as a result of infection? Like was that a criterion for inclusion in the study? All of the brain areas the researchers looked at are part of the central olfactory pathways. Based on what we know so far omicron does not seem to cause hyposmia or anosmia at the same rate as previous variants. I am not convinced that results from studies using participants infected with earlier variants can be generalized to omicron which may not invade organ systems to the same extent.

My whole family just had Covid and none of us (5 people) experiences more than very temporary hyposmia due to congestion , and certainly none of us experienced anosmia which is very distinct (total absence of smell). I think this is typical for many people who have been infected very recently or will be infected soon. I’m not sure we need to panic as these effects on the brain may be unique to those who experienced olfactory symptoms when infected with Covid.

In general I am not sure anyone can realistically avoid negative neuropsychological effects from this pandemic whether infected or not. Social isolation and loneliness have very real detrimental effects on the brain and on cognition. Perhaps even more so during critical developmental periods. Never mind the stress that is caused by constant uncertainty. None of us are going to come out of this scot free in terms of neurobiological and epigenetic markers. Even if you think you are handling it all just fine — your brain and body know better.

We don’t live in a risk free world. We all bear the marks of living on this planet and have to weigh the costs and benefits of different decisions that can be made at this time. I am not advocating for a “who cares” approach to Covid, by any means. But the reality is that this is going to affect all of us negatively in some way and that different people may make different decisions in light of the evidence. I am not convinced that the potential effects Covid has had on my brain or my children’s brains is necessarily worse than the effects of being out of school and away from peers, not participating in activities, etc for two years.

Being a human being on planet Earth involves risk. We cannot run and hide from all of it. All we can do is mitigate it the best we can and not beat ourselves up if bad things happen anyway.

[Anonymous]

My entire litigation boutique got covid in an office outbreak. If it impacted cognitive function as a rule rather than an exception, you’d think those of us in my office would know…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neuroscientist here. So far I’ve only read the abstract. I’ll have to look for the full text version on a computer in the next few days. Does anyone who has read the full test know whether the participants in this study all experienced hyposmia or anosmia as a result of infection? Like was that a criterion for inclusion in the study? All of the brain areas the researchers looked at are part of the central olfactory pathways. Based on what we know so far omicron does not seem to cause hyposmia or anosmia at the same rate as previous variants. I am not convinced that results from studies using participants infected with earlier variants can be generalized to omicron which may not invade organ systems to the same extent.

My whole family just had Covid and none of us (5 people) experiences more than very temporary hyposmia due to congestion , and certainly none of us experienced anosmia which is very distinct (total absence of smell). I think this is typical for many people who have been infected very recently or will be infected soon. I’m not sure we need to panic as these effects on the brain may be unique to those who experienced olfactory symptoms when infected with Covid.

In general I am not sure anyone can realistically avoid negative neuropsychological effects from this pandemic whether infected or not. Social isolation and loneliness have very real detrimental effects on the brain and on cognition. Perhaps even more so during critical developmental periods. Never mind the stress that is caused by constant uncertainty. None of us are going to come out of this scot free in terms of neurobiological and epigenetic markers. Even if you think you are handling it all just fine — your brain and body know better.

We don’t live in a risk free world. We all bear the marks of living on this planet and have to weigh the costs and benefits of different decisions that can be made at this time. I am not advocating for a “who cares” approach to Covid, by any means. But the reality is that this is going to affect all of us negatively in some way and that different people may make different decisions in light of the evidence. I am not convinced that the potential effects Covid has had on my brain or my children’s brains is necessarily worse than the effects of being out of school and away from peers, not participating in activities, etc for two years.

Being a human being on planet Earth involves risk. We cannot run and hide from all of it. All we can do is mitigate it the best we can and not beat ourselves up if bad things happen anyway.

I experienced a complete loss of smell, as did my husband, and we are both in cognitively demanding jobs, and I am quite sure neither of us are now brain damaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neuroscientist here. So far I’ve only read the abstract. I’ll have to look for the full text version on a computer in the next few days. Does anyone who has read the full test know whether the participants in this study all experienced hyposmia or anosmia as a result of infection? Like was that a criterion for inclusion in the study? All of the brain areas the researchers looked at are part of the central olfactory pathways. Based on what we know so far omicron does not seem to cause hyposmia or anosmia at the same rate as previous variants. I am not convinced that results from studies using participants infected with earlier variants can be generalized to omicron which may not invade organ systems to the same extent.

My whole family just had Covid and none of us (5 people) experiences more than very temporary hyposmia due to congestion , and certainly none of us experienced anosmia which is very distinct (total absence of smell). I think this is typical for many people who have been infected very recently or will be infected soon. I’m not sure we need to panic as these effects on the brain may be unique to those who experienced olfactory symptoms when infected with Covid.

In general I am not sure anyone can realistically avoid negative neuropsychological effects from this pandemic whether infected or not. Social isolation and loneliness have very real detrimental effects on the brain and on cognition. Perhaps even more so during critical developmental periods. Never mind the stress that is caused by constant uncertainty. None of us are going to come out of this scot free in terms of neurobiological and epigenetic markers. Even if you think you are handling it all just fine — your brain and body know better.

We don’t live in a risk free world. We all bear the marks of living on this planet and have to weigh the costs and benefits of different decisions that can be made at this time. I am not advocating for a “who cares” approach to Covid, by any means. But the reality is that this is going to affect all of us negatively in some way and that different people may make different decisions in light of the evidence. I am not convinced that the potential effects Covid has had on my brain or my children’s brains is necessarily worse than the effects of being out of school and away from peers, not participating in activities, etc for two years.

Being a human being on planet Earth involves risk. We cannot run and hide from all of it. All we can do is mitigate it the best we can and not beat ourselves up if bad things happen anyway.

Mother of the Long COVID patient. My DC had mild illness without any loss of taste or smell, and yet, DC has real significant cognitive struggles.

You are grasping at straws if you think that not having loss of senses protects you from Long COVID outcomes. There are many, many studies that have come out detailing the myriad of ways the body invades different body tissues and that the virus stays in the body for months even in patients who have mild infection. Like other viruses before it (flu, zika, ebola, HIV, HPV, Herpes), COVID is likely to have long term effects in at least some portion of the population and because of the millions of infected people, even if only 1% or 10% have long term issues, that’s still a ton of people.