Brain damage of patients with Covid-19

In an in-depth study, NIH researchers consistently found blood vessel damage in the brains of COVID-19 patients but no signs of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Here is a high-resolution scan of a patient's brain stem. Arrows point to light and dark spots that are indicative of blood vessel damage observed in the study. Credit: NIH/NINDS.

In an in-depth study of how COVID-19 affects a patient's brain, National Institutes of Health researchers consistently spotted hallmarks of damage caused by thinning and leaky brain blood vessels in tissue samples from patients who died shortly after contracting the disease. In addition, they saw no signs of SARS-CoV-2 in the tissue samples, suggesting the damage was not caused by a direct viral attack on the brain. The results were published as a correspondence in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We found that the brains of patients who contract infection from SARS-CoV-2 may be susceptible to microvascular blood vessel damage. Our results suggest that this may be caused by the body's inflammatory response to the virus" said Avindra Nath, M.D., clinical director at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study. "We hope these results will help doctors understand the full spectrum of problems patients may suffer so that we can come up with better treatments." Although COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory disease, patients often experience neurological problems including headaches, delirium, cognitive dysfunction, dizziness, fatigue, and loss of the sense of smell. The disease may also cause patients to suffer strokes and other neuropathologies. Several studies have shown that the disease can cause inflammation and blood vessel damage. In one of these studies, the researchers found evidence of small amounts of SARS-CoV-2 in some patients' brains. Nevertheless, scientists are still trying to understand how the disease affects the brain. In this study, the researchers conducted an in-depth examination of brain tissue samples from 19 patients who had died after experiencing COVID-19 between March and July 2020. Samples from 16 of the patients were provided by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City while the other 3 cases were provided by the department of pathology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City. The patients died at a wide range of ages, from 5 to 73 years old. They died within a few hours to two months after reporting symptoms. Many patients had one or more risk factors, including diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Eight of the patients were found dead at home or in public settings. Another three patients collapsed and died suddenly. Initially, the researchers used a special, high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner that is 4 to 10 times more sensitive than most MRI scanners, to examine samples of the olfactory bulbs and brainstems from each patient. These regions are thought to be highly susceptible to COVID-19. Olfactory bulbs control our sense of smell while the brainstem controls our breathing and heart rate. The scans revealed that both regions had an abundance of bright spots, called hyperintensities, that often indicate inflammation, and dark spots, called hypointensities, that represent bleeding. The researchers then used the scans as a guide to examine the spots more closely under a microscope. They found that the bright spots contained blood vessels that were thinner than normal and sometimes leaking blood proteins, like fibrinogen, into the brain. This appeared to trigger an immune reaction. The spots were surrounded by T cells from the blood and the brain's own immune cells called microglia. In contrast, the dark spots contained both clotted and leaky blood vessels but no immune response. "We were completely surprised. Originally, we expected to see damage that is caused by a lack of oxygen. Instead, we saw multifocal areas of damage that is usually associated with strokes and neuroinflammatory diseases," said Dr. Nath. Finally, the researchers saw no signs of infection in the brain tissue samples even though they used several methods for detecting genetic material or proteins from SARS-CoV-2. "So far, our results suggest that the damage we saw may not have been not caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus directly infecting the brain," said Dr. Nath. "In the future, we plan to study how COVID-19 harms the brain's blood vessels and whether that produces some of the short- and long-term symptoms we see in patients."

National institute of health

It is still early in the covid scientific game trying to figure out the body’s response to the virus.

Just now we hear this after a year ?

Hmmm 🤨

a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

Same thing happened after Spanish flu... long term health issues. It's just one of the nasty side effects of a new virus I guess.
I'm at the stage now where I just accept that it's gonna hurt humanity whether we like it or not. But life will go on, in a much different way, and that's not the virus' fault.

a reply to: xuenchen

And not only that.... it is still a maybe caused by.

According to the article

Chris Benoit had some crazy brain trauma, he ended up doing some bad stuff.
The black spots in the brain is a sign that you took too much damage....you can't get beat in the head every night and think it does nothing.
When they took his brain out, they found black spots from all the head shots.

abcnews.go.com...

www.sciencedaily.com...
www.dailymotion.com...

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: TheAlleghenyGentleman

Same thing happened after Spanish flu... long term health issues. It's just one of the nasty side effects of a new virus I guess.

Is it the SARS?
Or underlying weakness/conditions make one susceptible to the virus???

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

SARS, from my understanding, is an acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Which is a potential side effect of COVID-19 or any virus that can attack the respiratory system. Generally speaking if you have SARS, it can cause brain damage. Lack of oxygen = less cell function.

This study and article suggests that it's causing damage without SARS occurring.

a reply to: strongfp

which came first though?

IOW, was the virus the cause of the damage?
Or did the underlying, possibly hidden condition make one more likely to get CV?

Or was there no virus, a false positive and an already brain damaged individual? Cause let’s face it, where are all the dead hobos?

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

originally posted by: DrumsRfun
Chris Benoit had some crazy brain trauma, he ended up doing some bad stuff.
The black spots in the brain is a sign that you took too much damage....you can't get beat in the head every night and think it does nothing.
When they took his brain out, they found black spots from all the head shots.

abcnews.go.com...

www.sciencedaily.com...
www.dailymotion.com...

Yeah, but Chris was also juiced to the max. I'm not denying his head injuries could have caused his demise and others... but I think there's more to his story....

Thanks for posting this info Drums, especially the video. Watching now.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

It's genetics, the sars like coronaviruses are nothing in many and extremely dangerous and inflammatory in others.

Host Factors Critical for SARS-CoV-2 infection

One of the first groups I saw tested in hACE2 mice were intracranial, it was devastating to these mice. You shouldn’t see this in most but it can happen. That damage can happen in other tissue as well. It’s like an unholy game of Russian roulette for some.

ETA: There is a picture in the abstract of genes. You can take those and plug them into this website.

www.uniprot.org...

Then you can see what genes and issues people may have that could be worse in some COVID patients.

UniProt also has a whole page dedicated to Covid, it’s interesting to read and skim through.

originally posted by: xuenchen
Just now we hear this after a year ?

Hmmm 🤨

The human brain is very delicate. Susceptible to damage from hundreds of medical conditions.

19 brains examined? As in Covid-19?????? what a qwinky dink. Also, it would be interesting to see samples of similar individuals who died NOT from Covid-19 - as in a confirmed negative test - as a comparison. Also, if they had any before and after brain scans to confirm it is damage caused by the virus.

This is all interesting but clearly not a proper study. Another thought, were the blood vessels already damaged due to the patients other risk factors and thus the victims were more susceptible to succumbing to the virus?

From OP:

Many patients had one or more risk factors, including diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

Since diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease go hand in hand, here's some info to support my questions.

Aging is associated with structural changes to the brain that increase the risk for dementia. These changes include the loss of brain volume, and damage to blood vessels in the brain. Cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors, such as obesity, high blood pressure (i.e. hypertension), and type 2 diabetes, can promote these age-related changes.

www.alzdiscovery.org...

From another site:

Over time, diabetes damages small arteries in the brain, leading to ministrokes and brain tissue death. The result is a gradual loss of mental function. In addition, high blood sugar levels and insulin resistance appear to disrupt the communication pathways within the brain.

just listen to your tv, uhm sorry, i mean listen to the science.

a reply to: StoutBroux

It’s true though, epigenetic regulation and inheritance in these cells from these inflammatory conditions makes infection worse from SARS-CoV-2. I know they are doing quite a few studies on it now trying to figure out the specific issues.

Epigenetic inheritance in cells comes from a change in the structure of DNA. There is no change in the DNA aside from the normal mutations we see like nucleotide deletions, base substitutions, insertions etc. plus resulting damage from repair like non homologous end joining. Those are normal and a primary driver of why we age.

With epigenetic changes, the structure of DNA can change in a cell from environmental stimuli like insulin or inflammation with gene expression being changed and the proteins from those genes become abnormal. This change in structure is passed on to daughter cells in the organism. The host can now be more susceptible to infection, cell destruction and viral binding and changes to the protein expression in the cells and express significantly worse disease. Plus, the tissue is already fragile and prone to damage from inflammation.

I can’t wait to see what they find out, it could help us solve all the problems with the sars like coronaviruses. Plus, now that we’re learning we can target those genes with medication and antibodies to help the host through the worst part of the infection and increase survivability of their tissue so no scar tissue forms.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

SARS, from my understanding, is an acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Which is a potential side effect of COVID-19 or any virus that can attack the respiratory system. Generally speaking if you have SARS, it can cause brain damage. Lack of oxygen = less cell function.

This study and article suggests that it's causing damage without SARS occurring.

Vascular effects have been a hallmark of COVID, and from what I've read, it's largely due to dysregulation of the bradykinin system (component of the immune response.)

Lack of oxygen arriving to the brain (and other parts of the body) doesn't necessarily have to be caused by breathing problems. The 'Rona has a way of affecting the heme molecule in hemoglobin booting out the iron involved in oxygen transport. Once affected, a person can feel like they're taking deep, clear breaths and yet, still have plummeting blood oxygen levels.

Blind trust no one or no thing