“Covid is affecting major organs in the body in ways we never dreamed of” – Miriam Stoppard

The latest research from Oxford University shows the areas in the brain hardest hit by shrinkage as a result of Covid, but the virus can affect the nervous system, says Dr. Miriam Stoppard

I saw a summary of this research a few weeks ago and found it important enough to put it on my site in an abbreviated form.

Now that I have the full report from Oxford University, I can write about it in more detail.

covid affects the major organs of the body in ways we never dreamed of.

One of them turns out to be a brain.

And this latest research shows that it doesn’t even have to be a serious infection to cause harm.

It looks like the areas of the brain related to smell are hardest hit by the shrinkage, but the virus can spread throughout the nervous system.

We do not yet know whether these effects are permanent or reversible.

Most previous studies showing that Covid-19 can cause brain-related abnormalities have been conducted in hospitalized patients with severe illness.

The effects of mild Covid were previously unknown.

Professor Gwenaëlle Douaud and colleagues from the University of Oxford studied changes in the brains of 785 participants at the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource.

Participants aged 51 to 81 underwent two brain scans, spaced an average of 38 months apart, and cognitive testing.

A total of 401 participants tested positive for Covid between their two scans, 15 of whom were hospitalized.

The remaining 384 people who did not become infected acted as controls.

About 4.5 months after infection, the researchers noticed a greater reduction in gray matter thickness in the regions of the brain associated with smell (the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus) and a reduction in the size of the entire brain.

On average, between their two scans, the participants infected with Covid also showed greater cognitive decline associated with the shrinking of a specific part of the cerebellum (hindbrain) linked to cognition.

Professor Stephen Smith, senior author of the study, commented: “Another strength of this study is that it looked at the same people at two different time points.

“Importantly here, the first scan of UK Biobank participants was obtained before they became infected with SARS-CoV-2, the second scan after infection.

“The fact that we have the pre-infection scan helps us distinguish infection-related brain changes from differences that may already have existed in her brain.”

This before and after tracking makes this study unique.

We may have therefore found the blueprint for the degenerative spread of Covid-19 related to the sense of smell, inflammation or the immune response of the nervous system.

This is incredible news.