Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in late 2019, people have reported experiencing continued symptoms long after their infection has ended, commonly called Long Covid. Cognitive issues, or "brain fog", are one of the most often reported of these post-infection symptoms, which are thought to affect one in eight of all people infected.
The cause of these lingering cognitive issues has been a mystery to scientists, but new research suggests that inflammation caused by an overactive immune response could be the biological mechanism causing the persistent confusion, fatigue, and headaches reported by sufferers.
Research lead at the University of California San Francisco Joanna Hellmuth, MD, told MedPage that this research was essential to finding treatment for the condition, saying: "there are not yet effective laboratory tests or treatments for COVID-associated cognitive changes, in part because we do not understand the underlying biology."
