Long COVID Looks Like Acute Infection in the Brain

Long COVID has the biological signature of an acute infection in the brain, according to a new research study. For patients with difficulty thinking or concentrating due to Long COVID, which has lasted over four years in some, this may be caused by ongoing COVID-19 infection. In addition, 50 percent of people with Long COVID brain fog do not get better, but in the 50 percent that do, the critical immune system pathway involves interferon.

A research team from Rutgers has isolated the molecular makeup of the immune system’s response to Long COVID in the brain by extensively testing cerebral spinal fluid (CSF). By mapping the proteomics of the CSF in Long COVID patients, the team has made an important step toward resolving an ongoing debate about the cause of Long COVID. Long COVID looks like an acute infection. It does not fit the pattern of a post-infectious autoimmune process or Alzheimer’s disease. Further, brain fog is not caused by anxiety or depression and is not “all in the patient’s head.”

Since evidence is growing that about 24 million Americans have had some form of Long COVID, and that we can develop long COVID even after several infections, these findings are important for all of us.

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The research team, led by William Hu, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor and division chief of cognitive neurology at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has had extensive experience…