London, United Kingdom

Covid as the pandemic may be over, but many people are still fighting 'long Covid', the lingering aftereffects of the viral infection. Now, researchers seem to have found a cause for this.

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Long Covid refers to the lasting symptoms experienced by some people who have been exposed to the virus. These symptoms include breathlessness, fatigue, depression and anxiety. Millions of people in the world are currently going through long covid.

Based on brain scans, the researchers found that COVID-19 can inflame the brainstem tissue, which is the brain's control centre, in severe cases of infection. 

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The researchers examined high-resolution MRI scans of 30 people who were infected before vaccines were made available for the deadly virus.

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The scans showed inflammation of the brainstem, a crucial structure in the brain that regulates basic bodily functions like breathing and heart rate.

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The researchers hypothesise that the inflammation of the brain stem happens because severe infections trigger an immune response in that area.

This eventually results in long-lasting symptoms for months after hospitalisation. 

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The abnormalities observed in the scans on areas linked to breathing suggest the inflammation in the brainstem is likely contributing to these long-lasting effects, according to Dr Catarina Rua, a University of Cambridge neuroscientist and lead author of the study published in the journal Brain.

“We didn’t study people with long Covid, but they do often have long-lasting effects of breathlessness and fatigue, which are similar to the symptoms these very severely affected people had six months after they were hospitalised,” Rua was quoted as saying in The Guardian newspaper. “It does lead us to ask the question, do people with long Covid have any brainstem changes?”

The researchers reached the conclusion with the help of advanced 7 Tesla MRI technology.

The technology helped them identify 'microstructural abnormalities' in the brainstem tissue.

The inflammations were seen even six months after the initial hospitalisation of patients.

The study also found a link between inflammation of the brainstem and mental health issues like depression and anxiety, with those having the highest levels of inflammation showing the most severe symptoms.

The study is not conclusive about the causes of long Covid, but suggests that it is important to address inflammations during initial infection of the virus.

(With inputs from agencies)