Newswise — Chicago, IL – Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 frequently experience altered brain function, and those with mild COVID who never required hospitalization often develop neurologic symptoms as part of long COVID. A new study by Northwestern Medicine and published online on March 7, 2022, in Neurology® Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology, sought to find evidence of central nervous system injury in both groups of patients by looking at biomarkers of inflammation in the brain, and damage to nerve cells which are present in the blood, to help determine whether these tests might inform how best to identify and treat patients.
“These markers have been looked at in other COVID populations, but our study population was unique because we have matched cognitive and quality of life measures in addition to the typically studied COVID symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue and brain fog,” said Igor Koralnik, MD, chief of Neuro-infectious Diseases and Global Neurology in the Ken & Ruth Davee Department of Neurology at Northwestern Medicine, who also oversees the Neuro COVID-19 Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “The most noteworthy finding is that we were able to look at a marker of nerve cell damage and a marker of activation of supporting cells in the brain called ‘glial cells’ which are elevated in other diseases of the brain such as multiple sclerosis.”
The study enrolled 64 participants which included hospitalized COVID-19 patients at Northwestern Memorial with acute brain dysfunction known as encephalopathy, non-hospitalized COVID long-haulers treated at the Neuro COVID-19 Clinic, and healthy control subjects from the community.
