This tissue loss could result from reduced oxygen supply or severe immune system inflammation during the infection. Conversely, a few studies reported localized increases in gray matter volume.
Cystic fibrosis also shows an increase in gray matter in several areas of the brain, by a pretty considerable amount too. The hypothesis with CF is that it’s due to hypoxia, I wonder if this the same or similar phenomena.
Lost my sense of smell for a while. It gradually returned and some things tasted funny for some time.
Bigger problem was that I started dozing off if anything got boring. Half an hour drive to work became risky and on some days i needed ways to cause myself paint to stay focused. It lasted for 1,5 years.
I got COVID pretty badly and for a month or two after I just felt like I had no gas in my tank - I’d try to vacuum the house, for example, and I couldn’t get through it in one go. I thought “Oh, this is that fatigue they’ve been talking about.” But then that sort of wore off and I no longer lacked the energy to do stuff like that, except I just couldn’t bring myself to do those things. I’d be sitting there thinking “I really need to vacuum,” but it was like an insurmountable hurdle to go to the closet and get the vacuum out. Once I did, I could do the house without issue.
One of my employees had COVID about the same time as me, and we were talking about it when we were both back. Damned if she didn’t start describing the same sort of psychological fatigue-like thing. I was dumbfounded.
It lasted like another couple months and slowly went away, but man it was a bitch.
I think the most disturbing thing are the small details that only you really notice, and makes you wonder what else has changed that you don’t notice because your brain adjusted to it? It’s like the brain fog or memory, or even the classic loss of smell. You know something’s off, but it’s a vague feeling and the more time passes the more your current condition seems normal, even though you know you were different once.
My taste of peanut butter went from normal to cornbeef hash to normalish
I guess I won the brain damage lottery because cilantro no longer tastes soapy to me
I have no idea whether I have that or not because I’ve never tasted soap for comparison. Cilantro has… A flavor for me, certainly, but I have no idea if it’s the right one.
Ah damnit, I got the version that makes my soap taste all cilantro’y.
Bone apple tea!
Wow, that’s pretty crazy
It is amazing stuff. Ties the flavor bouquet of Thai food together.
It really is, I’ve been making up for the many years I missed out. Mexican and Thai are my go-tos for heavy use
I wish I got that.
My sense of taste changed permanently and my sense of smell got way more sensitive to petroleum smells so cars burning oil, cars without catalytic converters, and most fuels smell way worse to me than they used to, to the point of making me feel sick pretty easily.
I couldn’t smell anything at all for around 18 months. Citrus fruit tasted like fuel for a year or so. I still can’t eat eggs because they always taste like they have gone off.
Possibly some other stuff got damaged but not as noticeably.
It’s interesting how it all works. After cancer meds and radiation I can no longer taste Cherries a decade later, they just taste like water. But other foods seem fine…or good enough that I don’t notice.
I feel like my brain never fully recovered after COVID, and now im just slightly dumber.
I seriously think this explains much of the MAGA crowd.
I tell my wife that COVID rewired my brain. My memory is shot, I don’t enjoy things the way I used to and while I have eventually gotten my anxiety to a manageable level, it’s still way higher than precovid. I unfortunately suffered 4 COVID infections over a 2.5yr span, and yes, I was vaxxed. I think I got a little more scrambled than most.
Same.
Feels like I can’t afford to get that much dumber again, next time I’m infected.
As the article says, they lack pre covid data. I’d then question how they determine “abnormal behaviour”?
I guess losing ability to smell is a sign of brain damage. And eventually things get rewired with redundant, less important or new connections if possible, resulting in different scan results.
Because they compared them to the brains of healthy people, which while they have variation, have enough similarity to establish a baseline and recognize abnormality.
but like everyone had covid. so you compare people with dysfunction with people feeling healthy but both had covid.
I’ve never had covid.
I’ve never had Covid
Not everyone has had COVID and there are antibody markers that only show up with exposure to the virus itself. I think the estimate is around 20% of the population was never infected.
But we also just have brain scans from before the pandemic.
Not everyone.
