Study reveals possible cause of long COVID ‘brain fog’

Australian-led research may have uncovered the cause of the neurological conditions seen in patients with long-COVID, such as brain fog.

A study conducted by a team of researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, La Trobe University and Luxembourg University has revealed that fragments of proteins from the SARS-CoV-2 virus can form amyloid clumps in the brain that look similar to the amyloids found in patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Furthermore, the study authors showed that these amyloids are highly toxic to brain cells.

Dr Mirren Charnley, a postdoctoral researcher at Swinburne, designed, performed and analysed the biochemical flow cytometry assays used to determine the mechanism of brain cell death triggered by the amyloids and assisted with physical characterisation of the amyloids at the Australian Synchrotron.

“If further studies are able to prove that the formation of these amyloids is causing long-COVID then anti-amyloid drugs developed to treat Alzheimer’s might be used to treat some of the neurological symptoms of long-COVID,” Dr Charnley says.