Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Experiencing psychological distress prior to becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 is tied to an increased risk for post-COVID conditions often called “long COVID,” new research suggests. In an analysis of almost 55,000 adult participants in three ongoing studies, having depression, anxiety, worry, … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. There’s little doubt that long COVID is real. Even as doctors and federal agencies struggle to define the syndrome, hospitals and health care systems are opening long COVID specialty treatment programs. Today, there’s at least one long COVID center in almost … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The covered study in this summary was published on medRxiv.org as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed. Key Takeaway In-vivo of evidence of widespread neuroinflammation using a quantitative assessment, [18F]DPA-714 PET, implicates profound neuroinflammation in the pathophysiology of … Read more
As the number of people persistent, and sometimes debilitating, symptoms from COVID-19 increases, researchers have struggled to pinpoint exactly how common so-called “long COVID” is, as well as how to clearly define exactly who has it or who is likely to get it. Now, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers have concluded that … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. NEW ORLEANS – Patients experiencing brain fog and other persistent symptoms of long COVID show significant deficits on neuropsychiatric testing that correspond to infection with prior acute COVID-19, adding to mounting evidence of the significant toll the chronic condition can have … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Most COVID-19 long-haulers continue to have brain fog, fatigue and compromised quality of life more than a year after the initial infection, results from the most extensive follow up to date of a group of long COVID patients show. Most patients … Read more
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated vaccination efforts have brought the issue of vaccine hesitancy to the forefront of media and public attention. From 2019 to 2021, the prevalence of the term “hesitancy” in titles of scientific literature has risen from 3.3% to 8.3%, and continued skepticism around the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines remains a significant barrier in … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Patients with COVID-19, especially those with an altered sense of smell, have significantly more axon and microvasculopathy damage in the brain’s olfactory tissue versus non-COVID patients. These new findings from a post-mortem study may explain long-term loss of smell in some … Read more
Patients with persistent cognitive impairment months after illness with mild COVID-19 have higher levels of inflammatory markers in their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Researchers found elevated levels of CSF immune activation and immunovascular markers in individuals with cognitive post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC). Patients whose cognitive symptoms developed during the acute phase of COVID-19 had … Read more
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Investigators have found biochemical evidence of brain injury in patients hospitalized with acute COVID-19 and in those with long COVID. Combined blood biomarker evidence of neuronal damage activation of glial cells, indicating brain inflammation, correlated with symptoms of anxiety in long … Read more