Mild COVID-19 Infections Tied to Cognitive and Memory Changes Lasting Over a Year

• Published in: Neurology live (Print) 2024-09
• Main Author: Abene, Sophia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brain research; Cognitive ability; Confounding (Statistics); COVID-19 vaccines; Immunization; Infections; Memory; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Traumatic brain injury
• ISSN: 2767-4258; 2767-4266

Research Finds Connection Between Increased Hepatitis E Virus Seroprevalence and Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy Top Clinical Takeaways * Mild COVID-19 infections can lead to lasting subtle cognitive changes, particularly affecting memory and attention. * More severe COVID-19 cases are linked to significant cognitive deficits, potentially due to immune-mediated brain injury. * Vaccination can help mitigate cognitive differences after infection, with vaccinated individuals generally performing better on cognitive assessments. To address variability in baseline cognitive abilities among different populations, Hampshire said, "Unless there is explicit pre-infection cognitive data where we can individually baseline correct, then we have to test large populations and apply rigorous corrections based on demographic and other confounding factors, alongside careful sensitivity analyses where we stratify data according to potentially confounding factors in order to provide greater confidence in results. Additional findings revealed a correlation between reports of cognitive decline and objective assessments, with longitudinal data from 106 patients that indicated a trend toward cognitive recovery over the year.2 Conducted as a national study, investigators evaluated cognitive performance, serum biomarkers, and neuroimaging results from 351 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, comparing them with 2927 age and sex matched normative controls.