Researchers with an international consortium looking to understand the long-term consequences of Covid-19 on the central nervous system are finding memory issues and biological markers similar to those seen in Alzheimer's disease patients. Both diseases have been marked by inflammation of the brain.
Three to six months after they were infected, more than half of the patients still struggled with forgetfulness and about a quarter experienced additional cognitive challenges. How sick a patient was with Covid-19 was not an indicator of whether they would experience cognitive decline. He noted that the cognitive symptoms his team observed appear to be distinct from the"brain fog," associated with long-term symptoms of COVID-19, sometimes seen in younger patients.
Among 310 COVID-19 patients admitted to New York University Langone Health, the team found that those with neurological symptoms had higher levels of biomarkers linked to Alzheimer's. Those biomarkers include a protein called tau that's been linked with Alzheimer's and other compounds known as neurofilament light -- an indicator of damage to nerve cells -- and others.
"Those are the kinds of things that make you suspicious that indeed there may be an overlap with Alzheimer's disease, of some sort," Erausquin said."But it's very early in the game. We need a lot more data." Erausquin stressed that the research does not show that COVID-19 increases a person's risk for Alzheimer's, and there are some big questions that can only be answered with time.
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