Brain's Frontal Lobes Electric Activity Disrupted by COVID-19
COVID-19 has been found to cause neurological abnormalities in some patients, and researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh have investigated this using electroencephalography (EEG) tests. Here's what they found:
The EEG tests, which monitor the electrical activity of the brain, revealed that around a third of patients had abnormalities in the frontal lobes of the brain. This might be connected to the virus entering through the nose, as these lobes are located immediately adjacent.
To get a better understanding of how COVID-19 impacts the brain, the researchers examined EEG results from 617 patients across 84 different studies. The most common findings were slowed brain waves and abnormal electrical discharges. The extent of these EEG abnormalities was linked to the severity of the disease and the presence of preexisting neurological conditions, such as epilepsy.
Among the neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 are headaches, confusion, delirium, impaired consciousness, seizures, and strokes. The correlation between the severity of these symptoms and the EEG abnormalities suggests that EEG tests may be useful in diagnosing and monitoring COVID-19 patients with neurological issues.
It's worth noting that the virus might not be directly responsible for all the damage found in EEG tests. Systemic effects of the infection, such as inflammation, low oxygen levels, sticky blood, and cardiac arrest, could contribute to EEG abnormalities that extend beyond the frontal lobes.
These findings highlight the importance of considering various brain imaging tests, like MRI or CT scans, in addition to EEG tests, for a closer look at the frontal lobe and other parts of the brain.
Some people who recover from COVID-19 experience long-lasting health problems, often referred to as long COVID. Among these issues is "brain fog." A recent study found that individuals who had COVID performed less well on an online cognitive test than those who did not believe they had contracted the virus. Although this study has not been peer-reviewed, it reveals concerns about long-term effects on the brain.
The presence of EEG abnormalities associated with the neurological symptoms of COVID-19 infection supports these concerns, according to Dr. Zulfi Haneef from Baylor College of Medicine. It's possible that there might be long-term issues, he adds, echoing suspicions that have been growing. On the positive side, approximately 56.8% of patients who had follow-up EEG tests showed improvements.
There are limitations to the study, including incomplete access to raw data from individual studies, potential omissions of normal EEGs, and biases toward performing more EEGs on patients with neurological symptoms, which could affect the research results. Additionally, doctors may have administered anti-seizure medications to patients they suspected were having seizures, potentially obscuring seizure-related signs in the EEG traces.
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- The study on COVID-19's impact on the brain using EEG tests revealed that around a third of patients had epilepsy-like seizures, which could be linked to the coronavirus affecting the frontal lobes.
- The researchers found a correlation between the severity of COVID-19 and the presence of preexisting medical conditions such as neurological disorders, including epilepsy, and the extent of EEG abnormalities.
- The long-term effects of COVID-19 on the brain, often referred to as long COVID, have raised concerns, and the presence of EEG abnormalities associated with neurological symptoms may suggest long-term issues.
