A study finally reveals the secret of people with corona losing their sense of smell… “The brain shrinks in size”

A new study revealed that (Covid-19) infection can shrink parts of the brain, and result in cognitive decline.
The study, published yesterday, Monday, in the journal “Nature”, issued by the University of Oxford, claims that the brains of those who were infected with the emerging “Corona” virus, even with mild symptoms, suffer a greater loss of gray matter and abnormalities in brain tissue, compared to those who did not have ( COVID-19), and many of these changes were in the area of ​​the brain associated with the sense of smell.
“We were surprised to see clear differences in the brain even with mild infection,” said Gwenelle Daoud, associate professor of neurosciences at the University of Oxford, one of the authors of the largest study of its kind.
Daoud and her colleagues evaluated the brain scans of 401 people infected with (Covid-19) between March 2020 and April 2021, before infection and after an average of 4 and a half months after infection, 15 of whom were hospitalized.
They then compared the results with brain scans of 384 unaffected people, similar to the first group in age, socioeconomics, and risk factors such as blood pressure and obesity.
All of the 785 participants, both infected and uninfected, ranged in age from 51 to 81, and were all volunteers from the UK Biobank, an ongoing government health database of 500,000 people launched in 2012.
Daoud explained that it is normal for people to lose 0.2 to 0.3 percent of gray matter each year in areas associated with memory in the brain as they age, but in the study evaluation, people with the “Corona” virus lost an additional percentage: 0.2 to 2 percent of their gray matter. tissues, compared to those who did not have the infection.
In addition to brain scan results, study participants’ executive and cognitive functions were tested using the Trail Making Test, a tool used to help detect cognitive impairments associated with dementia, as well as testing the speed and function of brain processing. Loss of brain tissue also performed worse on this test.
Although the areas of the brain that are most affected appear to be related to the olfactory system, Gwinelle Daoud said it was not clear why this happened.
She explained, “Because the abnormal changes we see in the brains of affected participants may be partly related to the loss of smell, it is possible that restoring them may lead to these brain abnormalities becoming less noticeable over time, and the best way to resolve this is to examine these participants again. Within a year or two.”
Daoud said the researchers expect to rescan the participants’ brains and test them again within a year or two.
The authors of the new study caution that its findings are only a moment in time, but note that it “raises the possibility that the long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection may in time contribute to Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia.”
They also hope that their recent discoveries will help identify new drugs and treatments in the future.