Disruption in Electrical Activity of Frontal Lobes of Brain Found in Some COVID-19 Patients
COVID-19 and the Brain: Data on Neurological Symptoms and EEG Abnormalities
If you're ill with COVID-19, you might not just cough and lose your sense of smell. Around 15-25% of patients with severe COVID can experience neurological issues such as headaches, confusion, seizures, and strokes. When this happens, doctors may suggest an EEG test to monitor the electrical activity of your brain.
A study led by doctors from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh examined EEG results from 617 patients across 84 studies. Many of the abnormal findings were found in the frontal lobes of the brain, which is right next to the nose, the most common entry point for the virus.
The researchers noticed that the severity of the disease and the presence of preexisting neurological conditions, like epilepsy, led to more EEG abnormalities. The virus itself may not be fully responsible for all the damage; inflammation, low oxygen levels, sticky blood, and cardiac arrest might also play a role.
Approximately 70% of patients showed "diffuse slowing" — a slowing of the brain's background electrical activity.
Some survivors of COVID report ongoing symptoms, also known as long COVID. One of these symptoms is "brain fog." A study uploaded to the preprint server MedRxiv found that individuals who claimed to have had COVID performed poorly on an online cognitive test compared to those who did not believe they contracted the virus.
These findings raise concerns about long-term effects on the brain. According to Dr. Zulfi Haneef, an assistant professor of neurology/neurophysiology at Baylor, "These findings tell us that we need to try EEG on a wider range of patients, as well as other types of brain imaging, such as MRI or CT scans, that will give us a closer look at the frontal lobe."
The research does have some limitations, including a lack of access to raw data from individual studies and possible skewing of the results due to doctors' preference for performing more EEGs on patients with neurological symptoms.
Now, here's a little more insight:
- Neurological Symptoms and COVID-19: Clinical observations, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological testing suggest COVID-19 may cause a range of neurological symptoms such as headaches, seizures, impaired consciousness, and psychiatric symptoms.
- Post-COVID-19 Cognitive Impairment: A recent study suggests COVID-19 might lead to cognitive impairment, particularly in the realm of executive functions, which are associated with frontal lobe function.
- EEG Findings in COVID-19: While the referenced sources do not explicitly report a consistent or specific EEG pattern localized to the frontal lobes in COVID-19, EEG may show generalized or focal abnormalities.
In summary, while we don't have a unique EEG pattern specific to COVID-19 that's localized to the frontal lobes, observed neurological symptoms and deficits in executive function suggest this brain region may be affected in some patients. Keep an eye out for further research and advancements on this topic!
- The presence of epilepsy and the severity of COVID-19 can increase the likelihood of EEG abnormalities, as suggested by a study examining EEG results from patients with COVID-19.
- Beyond just headaches and confusion, severe COVID-19 can potentially lead to post-COVID-19 cognitive impairment, particularly affecting executive functions, which are associated with frontal lobe function, according to recent studies.
- In the realm of health-and-wellness and mental-health, the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the brain are a growing concern, given the observations of ongoing cognitive impairment and brain fog in some survivors of the virus.
