Brain's Frontal Lobes Affected by COVID-19: Electrical Activity Disruption Reported
Consuming copious amounts of data, researchers have unveiled striking findings about the brain's response to COVID-19.
More than a few studies suggest that roughly 15-25% of patients suffering from severe COVID-19 experience neurological symptoms, such as headaches, confusion, seizures, and strokes. To shed light on the brain's intricacies during this disease, scientists probed 617 patients' brains with EEG tests.
To put it simply, an EEG test involves plopping a bunch of electrodes on your scalp, allowing it to monitor the electrical activity zipping through your brain. With the help of this gizmo, researchers identified two main oddities: slow brain waves and peculiar electrical discharges that like to hang out in the frontal lobes of the brain.
Interestingly, the chunkier the brain abnormalities, the sicker the individual appeared to be and the more likely it was that they suffered from underlying neurological conditions (like aging brains or epilepsy).
Publishing their findings in the Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy, the researchers sounded a warning. While the virus might not be the primary culprit for all the damage, systemic effects such as inflammation, low oxygen levels, funky blood, and heart issues could play a role in the spread of these EEG wackiness beyond the frontal lobes.
Cats and dogs, just wait until you hear about Brain Fog. This pesky side-effect rears its head in people who've triumphed over COVID-19, now labeled as long-COVID. Some moan about lingering cognitive impairments—like forgetting where they left their car keys or feeling as if they're floating through life.
A recent study (that hasn’t been fully vetted yet) declares that individuals reporting COVID-19 symptoms displayed poorer cognitive performance on an online test than folks who didn’t think they caught the virus. These findings imply that COVID-19 might rust your brain like a salty seafarer, aging it about a decade!
Curious scientists contacted by the Science Media Centre in London, UK, concede that this study doesn’t prove a direct causal link between COVID-19 and permanent cognitive decline. However, it does elevate concerns over long-term neurological consequences.
Now, hold on to your horses, because this juicy nugget supports those rising concerns: EEG abnormalities have been linked to COVID-19!
According to Dr. Zulfi Haneef, a neurology professor at Baylor College of Medicine, around a third of the brain's abnormal findings focused on the frontal lobes—the area right next to your nostrils, the virus' likely entry point. He encourages doctors to consider EEG testing for a wider range of patients and other brain imaging techniques for a closer look at the frontal lobe.
Alas, it's not just the virus at fault. Some of the damage may stem from the overall effects of the infection, like inflammation, poor circulation, clotty blood, and heart troubles.
Astonishingly, almost 70% of patients presented slow background electrical activity in their entire brain. Not all COVID-19 patients displayed abnormalities, with some exhibiting improvements in follow-up tests. However, the study does have a few limitations, such as incomplete access to raw data from individual studies and possible biases in which patients received EEG tests.
In conclusion, EEG test results offer tantalizing clues about COVID-19's impact on the brain. While the exact prevalence and correlations of brain abnormalities remain unknown, doctors and researchers continue to scour for answers, hoping to minimize the long-term consequences of this pesky virus.
Stay sharp, folks! And keep watching those brain zones during this weird COVID-19 rodeo.
- The study suggests that around 15-25% of severe COVID-19 patients experience neurological symptoms, including seizures.
- Scientists used EEG tests to observe the electrical activity in the brains of 617 COVID-19 patients and found two main oddities: slow brain waves and peculiar electrical discharges in the frontal lobes.
- The research highlights a correlation between the severity of brain abnormalities and underlying neurological conditions, such as epilepsy and aging brains.
- EEG abnormalities have been linked to COVID-19, and neurology experts suggest considering EEG testing for a wider range of patients to better understand the virus's impact on the brain and minimize long-term consequences.
