Covid may diminish cognitive abilities: Study

THE STUDY POINTS TO AN EMERGING TREND: SARS-COV-2 IMPACTS BRAIN AND ITS EFFECTS CAN BE FELT AFTER RECOVERY

NEW DELHI: People who have recovered from Covid-19 possibly suffer from significant cognitive deficit, a study of more than 81,000 people in the UK who took an intelligence test online has suggested, offering more scientific basis to the anecdotal evidence from a growing number of people who report “Long Covid“brain fog.

The research, published in The Lancet’s E clinical Medicine journal late last month, builds on what is slowly emerging in multiple scientific and clinical studies: the Sars-cov-2 virus impacts the brain and its effects can be felt long after people recover.

“Our analyses provide converging evidence to support the hypothesis that Covid-19 infection is associated with cognitive deficits that persist into the recovery phase,” said the team of researchers led by Adam Hampshire of London’s Imperial College, in their report.

The study found that the deficit in cognition was worse among people who had more severe respiratory symptoms and among those who received a confirmed positive test. The researchers adjusted their analysis to account for differences based on age, gender, education or other demographic and socioeconomic variables.

The report is the third in two months to flag the impact Covid-19 has on the brain.

On June 15, a team led by neuroscientists and researchers in Oxford university published the result of their analysis of brain scans of people before and after they had Covid-19. In close to 400