Biological Evidence for Anxiety in Long COVID

[Mimi]

Investigators have found biochemical evidence of brain injury in patients hospitalized with acute COVID-19 and in those with long COVID. Combined blood biomarker evidence of neuronal damage activation of glial cells, indicating brain inflammation, correlated with symptoms of anxiety in long COVID patients. This study shows that "some patients with long COVID have evidence of brain damage or brain inflammation, which gives validity to the symptoms that these patients present with," Igor Koralnik, MD, head of the Neuro COVID-19 Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, said during a media briefing.

[Niyam]

@mimi Although patients hospitalized with COVID-19 often present with encephalopathy, patients with mild initial COVID-19 who don't require hospitalization can also develop neurologic symptoms as part of post-acute sequelae of severe acute respiratory coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection (neuro-PASC). Symptoms of neuro-PASC include cognitive difficulties, headaches, dizziness, disorders of smell and taste and neuropsychiatric complaints such as new-onset anxiety and depression. The lingering nature of these complaints suggests that ongoing brain inflammation and/or direct damage to the central nervous system may persist long after acute infection with the virus resolves.