Scientists discover underlying cause of "brain fog" linked with Long Covid

> "For the first time, we have been able to show that leaky blood vessels in the human brain, in tandem with a hyperactive immune system may be the key drivers of brain fog associated with Long COVID. ..." — Prof. Matthew Campbell, Professor in Genetics and Head of Genetics at Trinity, and Principal Investigator at FutureNeuro.

As for healing, I'd think blood vessels could! The article doesn't say whether it's an autoimmune problem, so I suspect the researchers are being conservative or don't know?

> "The concept that many other viral infections that lead to post-viral syndromes might drive blood vessel leakage in the brain is potentially game changing and is under active investigation by the team.” — also Prof. Campbell

[from the article -- BBB is Blood Brain Barrier]

"We have three on-going, major follow-up initiatives. First, we are assessing, in a temporal manner, whether symptom resolution in patients who had long COVID and brain fog is accompanied by the resolution of BBB disruption. Second, we are screening novel BBB regulators to specifically target and treat the BBB disruption observed. This is exciting as we do not need to develop therapeutics to cross the BBB per se, but rather only to stabilize the structure. Last, we are expanding our clinical research into examining BBB integrity in other post-viral illnesses in tandem with functional neurological disorders (those conditions with no current observable basis for them). It is our vision that targeted regulation of the BBB will change the landscape of how neurological disorders are treated in the future."

> Vascular disruption has been implicated in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pathogenesis and may predispose to the neurological sequelae associated with long COVID, yet it is unclear how blood–brain barrier (BBB) function is affected in these conditions.

> The team led by scientists at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology and neurologists in the School of Medicine have also uncovered a novel form of MRI scan

A typical clinical MRI machine has a resolution of about 2mm. Small lesions are invisible to it. They are expensive to run and, more importantly, a scan takes a long time, so you usually only do some sort of specialized detail measurements, not a detailed "full picture" of everything. MRI machines typically run non-stop to be economically viable (just the helium coolant costs something like 200k$ per year), consequently your research likely competes with other teams', I presume. The contrasting agents able to cross the blood-brain-barrier are not substances without concern. They tend to accumulate in the brain, I guess people may be extra cautious with a hypothesis of hyperimmunity, or leaky blood vessels.

I am pretty sure a standard MRI scan of the brain did not show the described clinical evidence before.

Also:

> Undertaking this complicated clinical research study at a time of national crisis and when our hospital system was under severe pressure is a testament to the skill and resource of our medical trainees and staff.

> "The concept that many other viral infections that lead to post-viral syndromes might drive blood vessel leakage in the brain is potentially game changing and is under active investigation by the team.” — Matthew Campbell, Professor in Genetics and Head of Genetics at Trinity, and Principal Investigator at FutureNeuro.

Part of the article talks about how testing and confirmation of a COVID diagnosis was a requirement here, which helps narrow down the study.

Maybe most obvious things don’t get funded so the research cannot be done.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01576-9

Not that I could really tell, after having it twice.

Edit: having the disease, not your soup. I bet it tastes wonderful.