A Covid-19 can impact cognitive and memory capacity of people for more than a year after infection, according to researchers at Imperial College London, in England. In a new study, scientists discovered minor impairments in performance of cognitive tasks and memories in people who have recovered from coronavirus infection, compared to those who have not had the disease.
The results of studypublished at the end of February in New England Journal of Medicinealso include people who had long Covid, that is, symptoms that last for months or even years after infection.
The study involved more than 140 thousand participants who were invited to carry out an innovative cognitive assessment on the platform Cognitronwhich comprises tasks that can detect subtle changes in different aspects of brain function, such as memory, reasoning, executive function, attention and impulsivity.
The large scale of the study and the sensitivity of the tests used by the researchers allowed factors related to post-Covid cognitive deficits to be examined in detail, controlling for variables such as age, demographics and pre-existing medical conditions.
Impact on cognitive function was greater in people with long Covid
The results of the study showed minor cognitive impairments that were still detectable a year or more after Covid-19 infection, particularly in people who had long Covid — although researchers also found this deficit in people who had symptoms for a short period.
According to the researchers, the impact on cognitive function was greater in people who had symptoms that lasted 12 weeks or longer, those who were hospitalized due to the illness or those who were infected with one of the early variants of the Covid-19 virus.
“The potential long-term effects of COVID-19 on cognitive function have been a concern for the public, healthcare professionals and policymakers, but until now it has been difficult to measure them objectively in a large population sample,” says Adam Hampshire, study co-author and professor in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College Londonin a statement.
The results showed that Covid-19 was associated with negative impacts on multiple areas of cognition, mainly memory, such as the ability to remember images of objects that were seen a few minutes earlier.
In addition, participants also showed small deficits in some tasks that test executive and reasoning skills, such as spatial planning and verbal reasoning.
“By using our online platform to measure multiple aspects of cognition and memory on a large scale, we were able to detect small but measurable deficits in performance on cognitive tasks. We also found that people were likely affected in different ways depending on factors such as duration of illness, virus variant and hospitalization,” explains Hampshire.
The study also showed that those who had long Covid, but who no longer had symptoms at the time of the study, had an improvement in cognitive functions to levels similar to participants who had short-term symptoms.
“Additionally, the cognitive impact of COVID-19 appears to have diminished since the early phases of the pandemic, with fewer people having persistent illness and cognition being less affected among those who were infected during the period when Omicron was the dominant variant.” , comments Paul Elliot, senior author of the study and director of the REACT program, at the School of Public Health of Imperial College London.
“However, given the large number of people infected, it will be important to continue monitoring the long-term clinical and cognitive consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic”, he adds.
Source: CNN Brasil
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