Brain's Frontal Lobes Electrical Activity Potentially Affected by COVID-19
Heads Up: COVID-19 and Your Brain
The coronavirus has been wreaking havoc on our physical health, but it's also been causing some trouble in the cerebral department. A recent study reveals that as many as 15-25% of severe COVID-19 patients may experience neurological symptoms.
To understand how COVID-19 affects the brain, researchers analyzed EEG results from over 600 patients. They found that the virus may not be solely responsible for the damage, as systemic effects of the infection, such as inflammation, low oxygen levels, and cardiac arrest, may be contributing factors.
The most common findings included slowing of brain waves and abnormal electrical discharges, with the frontal lobes being particularly affected. Since the most likely entry point for the virus is the nose, there seems to be a connection between the part of the brain next to that entry point and the virus.
"We need to try EEG on a wider range of patients, as well as other types of brain imaging, such as MRI or CT scans, that will give us a closer look at the frontal lobe," says Dr. Zulfi Haneef, one of the study's co-authors.
The virus may be aging people's brains cognitively by about a decade, as some recovering COVID-19 survivors report ongoing health problems like "brain fog." A recent study found that individuals who claim to have had COVID performed less well on an online cognitive test than those who did not believe they had contracted the virus. Experts note that this study does not prove that the infection caused long-term cognitive decline but does raise concerns about lasting effects on the brain.
On a positive note, the study found that 56.8% of patients who had follow-up EEG tests showed improvements. However, the researchers acknowledge several limitations, including the lack of raw data from individual studies and the potential for anti-seizure medications to obscure seizure signs in EEG traces.
Taking It Further:
The correlation between COVID-19 severity and EEG abnormalities, particularly those involving the frontal lobes, is increasingly recognized in recent research focused on the neurological impacts of the disease. Post-mortem studies have shown microglial activation, metabolic failure in glial cells, and vascular inflammation associated with brain damage, which can underlie abnormal EEG patterns. These pathological changes can affect brain function and electrical activity seen in EEGs.
EEG abnormalities can precede clinical neurological deterioration, indicating their potential use as early biomarkers of severe CNS involvement in COVID-19. More broadly, COVID-19 severity as measured by systemic viral load and inflammation correlates with CNS involvement manifesting as EEG abnormalities, reinforcing the link between systemic disease burden and brain dysfunction. The frontal lobe EEG abnormalities may reflect underlying inflammation, microglial dysfunction, and metabolic/metabolic failure as observed in brain autopsies of COVID-19 patients.
- The study on COVID-19 patients' EEG results suggests that neurological disorders such as epilepsy seizures, being linked to abnormal electrical discharges, could potentially occur in 15-25% of severe COVID-19 cases.
- It's been noted that the coronavirus seems to have a particular impact on the frontal lobes, with recent research highlighting the correlation between COVID-19 severity and EEG abnormalities in this area.
- As the connection between COVID-19 and neurological disorders unfolds, it's crucial to address health-and-wellness concerns related to these medical-conditions, such as epilepsy seizures, especially given the potential role of EEG abnormalities in predicting severe CNS involvement in the disease.
