A team of scientists at Western University have been observing neurological and cognitive injuries associated with COVID-19.
The Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry began the study last year by using powerful brain-imaging to observe the possible long-term effects the virus has on the human brain.
Clinical lead on the study, Dr. Megan Devlin, who is also an infectious disease physician at the London Health Sciences Centre's COVID-19 care clinic said she's seen symptoms ranging from headaches and loss of smell, to more severe side effects like memory loss, confusion, headaches, and in rare cases some hospitalized patients suffer a stroke.
"I often tell patients that each individual's experience with COVID-19 illness can be very different," explained Dr. Devlin. "In the same way, recovery is also variable for every individual. Some people recover from their neurologic symptoms quickly, others take many months to see some recovery."
The research team says it believes the neurological symptoms could be caused by the virus triggering microbleeds, which are tiny vessels bleeding inside the brain. Scientists say that some of the injuries are so small that they aren't visible with clinical imaging done in hospitals, which is why a specialized MRI scanner is being used in the study.
With the help of a grant, the team hopes to recruit 60 patients who experienced neurological symptoms while sick with COVID-19. Cognitive testing and scans will be performed on each participant to observe any changes in functioning after recovering from the illness.
"One of the really interesting questions that we are hoping to answer is the effect of COVID-19 on developing other diseases later in life," said Robert Bartha, the study's acting director. "Any time you have a condition that causes insult to the brain, it brings in the question about whether this might accelerate the processes that leads to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's or dementia."