Even Mild Cases of COVID Found to Cause Depression and Anxiety Months Later
Even if you have a mild case of COVID-19 the long-term effects of the illness might change the way your brain works.
A new study in Brazil finds that these changes might result in depression and anxiety months after you have been infected by the virus.
Read More »Problems Months After Infection
Much is still to be learned about long COVID, explains Dr. Clarissa Yasuda of the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil. These findings include a great variety of health problems months after you have been infected.
The findings in the new study at the university are worrying, Yasuda says. Even people who suffered only a mild case of COVID-19 are displaying changes in their brains months later.
The results of the study suggest a pattern of severe changes in the way in which the brain communicates as well as in its structure, she notes. These changes are mainly in people who display symptoms of depression and anxiety along with long COVID syndrome, which impacts so many people, Yasuda says.
Long-term Issues
The size of these changes suggest that they could result in long-term problems with thinking and memory skills.
Holistic treatments should be explored for those people who have been even mildly impacted by COVID-19.
Yasuda says more studies are needed to identify other possible treatments in order to prevent the changes having long-term effects on the quality of life of the people involved.
The study’s findings are to be reported at the 75th annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology to be held in Boston and online from April 22-27, 2023.
Study Included Tests and Brain Scans
The study by researchers at the university included 254 people with an average age of 41 who had a mild infection of COVID-19 three months earlier. They completed tests to assess the presence of symptoms of anxiety and depression.
The tests showed that, of those in the study, 102 people had symptoms of both depression and anxiety whereas 152 people had no symptoms.
In addition to the tests, the subjects in the study underwent brain scans. Researchers studied the brain’s gray matter to determine whether there had been shrinkage of the brain.
They compared the brain scans of those who had contracted COVID-19 with the scans of 148 people who did not contract the disease.
Brain Shrinkage
The researchers found that those who had suffered from COVID-19 displayed shrinkage in the brain’s limbic area, which plays a role in emotional and memory processing. The people who had COVID-19 but did not suffer from depression and anxiety as well as those who did not suffer from the disease showed no shrinkage in their brains.
In addition, the researchers examined brain changes and function in the area of connectivity—the way in which the brain communicates—among brain areas. Using a special kind of software to analyze the networks and activity of the brain they examined 84 people from the group who showed no symptoms compared with 70 people from the group that showed depression and anxiety as well as 90 people who did not suffer from COVID-19.
Extensive Functional Changes
The group with symptoms of depression and anxiety had extensive functional changes in all of the 12 networks in the brain that the researchers tested. The group who had no symptoms showed changes in only five networks.
A limitation of the study was that the symptoms of depression and anxiety were self-reported, the researchers note. As a result, some people might have misjudged or misreported symptoms in the initial tests.
