Brain's frontal lobe electrical activity may be impacted by COVID-19
COVID-19 hitting the brain ain't no joke. Scientific findings point out that a third of patients with severe cases might develop neurological symptoms, ranging from migraines to seizures and strokes. When these symptoms pop up, doctors will probably send 'em for an Electroencephalography (EEG) test - a fancy way of monitoring the brain's electrical activity by stickin' some electrodes on the scalp.
Now, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh took a deep dive into EEG results from 617 patients across 84 different studies. The average age of these patients was 61, with two-thirds being fellas. The researchers found that the most common issues were the slowing of brain waves and some strange electrical zaps.
Interestingly, the extent of these EEG abnormalities seemed to rise with the severity of the disease, and individuals with preexisting neurological conditions like epilepsy showed more seein' of these abnormalities. The report was published in the European Journal of Epilepsy's Seizure magazine.
Dr. Zulfi Haneef, an assistant professor of neurology and neurophysiology at Baylor, explained that the virus seems to be causin' these issues since the nose - the most likely entry point for the virus - is right next to the frontal lobes of the brain. He reckons it's crucial to up the EEG and other brain imaging tests, like MRI or CT scans, to take a closer look at the frontal lobes.
However, it ain't all on the virus - systemic effects of the infection, such as inflammation, low oxygen levels, sticky blood, and heart issues, might play a part in those abnormalities that pop up outside the frontal lobes.
The study exposed "diffuse slowing" in the background electrical activity of the whole brain in almost 70% of patients. This "brain fog" is being reported by many COVID-19 survivors, now dubbed longhaulers.
Recent research uploaded to the preprint server MedRxiv found that these longhaulers performed poorly on an online cognitive test compared to those who never caught the bug. The authors suspect it aged people's brains by about a decade.
It's important to note that the study doesn't prove long-term cognitive decline, but it does raise concerns about long-term effects on the brain. Dr. Haneef stated that the EEG abnormalities associated with COVID-19's neurological symptoms emphasize these concerns.
He pointed out that, although improvements have been observed in 56.8% of cases through follow-up EEG tests, there might still be long-term issues, which experts have suspected for a while. Fact is, more evidence keeps piling up to support that assumption.
There were some limits to the study, such as lack of access to raw data from individual studies and possible biases in the reporting and performance of EEG tests. Nonetheless, the findings offer valuable insights into the potential neurological impacts of COVID-19.
- COVID-19 patients who have severe cases may develop epilepsy seizures, migraines, and strokes as neurological symptoms, and individuals with preexisting neurological conditions like epilepsy might exhibit more of these symptoms.
- The extent of EEG abnormalities seems to increase with the severity of COVID-19, and its complications, such as inflammation and low oxygen levels, might play a part in these abnormalities that appear outside the frontal lobes.
- Long-term effects on health-and-wellness, including cognitive decline and neurological disorders, remain a concern for COVID-19 survivors, as recent studies suggest that the virus may aged these individuals' brains by about a decade.
