In a new study from Columbia University, researchers found that the brains of a small sample of patients who died of COVID display some of the same changes found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
The findings could help explain the memory problems reported by sufferers of “long COVID”.
Early reports of “brain fog” and persistent cardiac symptoms in COVID survivors prompted the researchers to examine how certain molecules called ryanodine receptors were affected in this new disease.
Inside neurons, defective ryanodine receptors have previously been linked to an increase in phosphorylated tau, a well-known hallmark of Alzheimer’s.
In the study, the team found high levels of phosphorylated tau in the brains of the COVID patients in addition to defective ryanodine receptors.
Phosphorylated tau was found in areas where tau is typically located in Alzheimer’s patients, as well as in areas where tau is not typically located in Alzheimer’s patients.
That suggests that phosphorylated tau in the COVID patients could be a sign of early-stage Alzheimer’s and also contribute to other neurological symptoms observed in COVID-19 patients.
Increased levels of phosphorylated tau in the brain are believed to be linked to memory problems in Alzheimer’s and could be causing similar issues in people with long COVID.
Based on the findings, together with additional changes found in the brain, the team theorizes that the immune response characteristic of severe COVID causes inflammation in the brain, which in turn leads to dysfunctional ryanodine receptors and then increases in phosphorylated tau.
No changes in the pathways that lead to the formation of amyloid beta—another hallmark of Alzheimer’s—were found.
One interpretation of these findings is that long COVID could be an atypical form of Alzheimer’s and/or that patients who had severe COVID could be predisposed to developing Alzheimer’s later in life.
But much more research needs to be done before researchers can make more definitive conclusions.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about the cause of severe disease and death in COVID-19, and drug combo that could effectively fight COVID-19.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about how COVID-19 harms the brain, and results showing how to prevent brain aging effectively.
The study is published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association., and was conducted by Andrew Marks et al.
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