Scientists Are Just Beginning to Understand COVID-19's Effect On the Brain
BY JAMIE DUCHARME
JULY 17, 2023 10:50 AM EDT
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors started to notice something striking. For what was originally described as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 seemed to have a strong effect on the brain, causing everything from loss of taste and smell and brain fog to, in serious cases, stroke.
NYU Langone Health, a New York city research hospital, started collating those anecdotes in hopes of better understanding how the virus affects the brain and nervous system. Years later, the project has morphed from focusing solely on acute symptoms to also tracking the long-term neurologic issues that some people with Long COVID experience, says program director Dr. Sharon Meropol.
The list of neurocognitive issues that Meropol’s team and other researchers must track is extensive: cognitive decline, changes in brain size and structure, depression and suicidal thinking, tremors, seizures, memory loss, and new or worsened dementia have all been linked to previous SARS-CoV-2 infections. In some cases, these longer-term problems occur even in patients with relatively mild COVID-19.
The “Holy Grail” question now, Meropol says, is what’s going on in the brains of COVID-19 patients—and how to reverse the damage.
https://time.com/6294762/how-covid-19-affects-brain-memory/
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Hope you're doing well too. 
