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Study links even mild Covid-19 to changes in the brain

Published

3 years ago

March 8, 2022

Study links even mild Covid-19 to changes in the brain

The research, printed Monday within the journal Nature, is believed to be the biggest of its sort. It discovered that the brains of those that had Covid-19 had a better lack of grey matter and abnormalities within the mind tissue in contrast with those that did not have Covid-19. A lot of these modifications have been within the space of the mind associated to the sense of scent.

“We have been fairly shocked to see clear variations within the mind even with delicate an infection,” lead creator Gwenaëlle Douaud, an affiliate professor of neurosciences on the College of Oxford, informed CNN in an e-mail.

Douaud and her colleagues evaluated mind imaging from 401 individuals who had Covid-19 between March 2020 and April 2021, each earlier than an infection and a mean of 4½ months after an infection. They in contrast the outcomes with mind imaging of 384 uninfected folks related in age, socioeconomics and threat components equivalent to blood strain and weight problems. Of the 401 contaminated folks, 15 had been hospitalized.

The 785 individuals have been between the ages of 51 and 81 and have been all a part of the UK Biobank, an ongoing authorities well being database of 500,000 folks begun in 2012.

Douaud defined that it’s regular for folks to lose 0.2% to 0.3% of grey matter yearly within the memory-related areas of the mind as they age, however within the research analysis, individuals who had been contaminated with the coronavirus misplaced a further 0.2% to 2% of tissue in contrast with those that hadn’t been contaminated.

Along with imaging, the individuals have been examined for his or her government and cognitive perform utilizing the Path Making Take a look at, a instrument used to assist detect cognitive impairments related to dementia and take a look at an individual’s mind processing pace and performance. The researchers discovered that those that had the best mind tissue loss additionally carried out the worst on this examination.

Though the areas of the mind most affected look like associated to the olfactory system, Douaud stated it wasn’t clear why that was the case.

“For the reason that irregular modifications we see within the contaminated individuals’ brains is likely to be partly associated to their lack of scent, it’s potential that recovering it’d result in these mind abnormalities changing into much less marked over time. Equally, it’s possible that the dangerous results of the virus (whether or not direct, or oblique through inflammatory or immune reactions) lower over time after an infection. One of the best ways to seek out out can be to scan these individuals once more in a single or two years’ time,” she stated.

Douaud added that the researchers anticipate reimaging and testing the individuals in a single or two years.

And whereas the research finds some affiliation between an infection and mind perform, it is nonetheless not clear why. Earlier research have proven folks with vital and repeated lack of scent even have an related lack of grey matter. Nevertheless, this research didn’t consider whether or not folks truly had a lack of scent.

The authors cautioned that the findings have been solely of a second in time however famous that they “elevate the likelihood that longer-term penalties of SARS-CoV-2 an infection may in time contribute to Alzheimer’s illness or different types of dementia.”

The findings have been noticeable, however they weren’t sufficient to trigger alarm, stated Dr. Richard Isaacson, a neurologist and director of the Florida Atlantic College Heart for Mind Well being. Isaacson was not concerned within the research.

Isaacson stated the findings have been noticeable for clinicians, however he added that the general impression on people was troublesome to find out and might be small. “It is actually exhausting to know the long-term medical impression and high quality of life impression in a state of affairs like this,” he stated.

“The mind could also be affected by different mechanisms equivalent to immune, inflammatory, vascular or psychological/behavioral change however not direct an infection,” stated Dr. Alan Carson, a professor of neuropsychiatry on the Heart for Medical Mind Sciences on the College of Edinburgh, who was not concerned within the research.

“What this research virtually definitely exhibits is the impression, when it comes to neural modifications,” he stated. “However I do not assume it helps us perceive the mechanisms underpinning cognitive change after Covid an infection.”

Related Topics:Featured health Study links even mild Covid-19 to changes in the brain - CNN

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Video: Inside Trump’s Shifting Stance on Iran

Published

5 hours ago

June 18, 2025

Press Room

Video: Inside Trump’s Shifting Stance on Iran

President Trump spent the first months of his term holding back Israel’s push for an assault on Iran’s nuclear program. With the war underway, he has now expressed support for Israel. Jonathan Swan, a White House reporter for The New York Times, breaks down how the president got to this point.

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Donald Trump plans to delay TikTok ban for a third time

Published

8 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Press Room

Donald Trump plans to delay TikTok ban for a third time

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The White House has said it will allow TikTok to continue operations in the US for another 90 days, extending a deadline for the popular Chinese-owned social media app to divest a stake in the platform to satisfy American law.

“President [Donald] Trump will sign an additional executive order this week to keep TikTok up and running,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. “As he has said many times, president Trump does not want TikTok to go dark.

“This extension will last 90 days, which the administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.”

Last year, Congress passed legislation to force ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, to sell the app or face a ban in the US.

Trump has promised to “save” the app and has twice extended the deadline — first from January to April, and then from April to June 19 — after failing to deliver a deal, which requires sign-off from China.

Ahead of the April deadline, the White House was closing in on an agreement that would spin off TikTok from ByteDance and create a US company to receive new investment, diluting the stakes of Chinese investors.

Under the terms of that deal, investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Blackstone, would have owned about half of TikTok’s US business, while large existing investors, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna and KKR, would have held about 30 per cent of the new entity.

The Financial Times has previously reported that the White House had considered other potential outside investors, including rightwing media star Tucker Carlson.

ByteDance told the White House and investors that Beijing was willing to approve the deal, according to one person familiar with the matter. But after Trump announced tariffs on China and other countries on April 2, ByteDance informed the investors that Beijing had rescinded its approval. The White House was waiting for the US-China trade tensions to ease before trying to resurrect the deal, according to the person.

In 2020, during his first term as president, Trump moved to block TikTok, writing in an executive order that its data collection “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information”.

Trump changed his approach to the platform, however, after he used it to reach younger voters in the 2024 election. In May, Trump told NBC that he had “a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok”.

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NAACP won't invite Trump to its national convention, breaking a 116-year tradition

Published

9 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Press Room

NAACP won't invite Trump to its national convention, breaking a 116-year tradition

The NAACP logo is shown during an event at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 2015. The civil rights group has announced it won’t invite President Trump to address its convention, breaking a 116-year tradition of inviting sitting presidents.

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The NAACP announced it will not invite President Trump to its national convention in July. The civil rights organization is breaking from its 116-year tradition of welcoming the sitting U.S. president to the annual event that draws NAACP supporters from around the country.

The group says Trump is the first president it has declined to invite.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson made the announcement Monday at a news conference in Charlotte, N.C., where the convention is scheduled to be held. The group also shared a statement from Johnson.

“Donald Trump is attacking our democracy and our civil rights … The president has signed unconstitutional executive orders to oppress voters and undo federal civil rights protections,” Johnson said. “… he continually undermines every pillar of our democracy to make himself more powerful and to personally benefit from the U.S. government.”

The White House responded sharply on Tuesday to the president’s exclusion from the event. Trump declined previous invitations during his first term.

Voters walk into the Oak Creek Town Hall to drop off their ballots on Nov. 5, 2024, in Oak Creek, Colo.

“The NAACP isn’t advancing anything but hate and division, while the President is focused on uniting our country, improving our economy, securing our borders, and establishing peace across the globe,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement to NPR. “This is the same vision for America that a record number of Black Americans supported in the resounding reelection of President Trump.”

The NAACP has welcomed both Democratic and Republican presidents to address the convention over the years. Presidents have historically used their remarks to build stronger ties with the Black community.

President Ronald Reagan addressed the NAACP convention in Denver in 1981 and spoke out against racism and discrimination. President George W. Bush spoke at the convention in Washington, D.C., in 2006 amid criticism of his administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. The storm disproportionately affected Black residents in New Orleans and the Gulf region. In his remarks, Bush resolved to work with the Black community to recover from the storm. He had declined previous invitations to the event.

The NAACP has filed a number civil rights lawsuits against the administration since Trump’s return to the White House, including a challenge to efforts to cut federal funding to schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. The organization has also filed suit to block plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

The Trump administration has enacted a series of substantial changes that the NAACP says conflicts with its mission of achieving equity, political rights, and social inclusion for Black Americans and all people of color. The changes include eliminating DEI programs in higher education and across the federal government; removing some Black historical figures from government websites; and restoring the names of military bases that originally honored white supremacists and owners of enslaved people.