With COVID-19, a storm of inflammatory cytokine proteins can trigger an out-of-control immune response that might permanently damage or destroy brain cells.Īnd with damage to the brain, Boldrini says, “we may not be the same person anymore.” Personality, behavior, and the brain While little is known about the mechanisms behind many of these symptoms, researchers increasingly believe that inflammation may play a key role. These conditions can radically change how people experience, interpret, and understand the world destabilize emotions and influence how people think about themselves or interact with others. Today these neurological problems are an established element of a larger syndrome known as long COVID that includes at least 203 symptoms in 10 organ systems.īoldrini notes that some long COVID symptoms mirror those caused by various chronic brain- and personality-altering conditions, including other viral infections, traumatic brain injuries, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s. Not all had been hospitalized some had only mild infections.
After recovering from the virus, an alarming number of patients remain shrouded in brain fog, suffering from anxiety or depression, unable to think straight or hold on to memories, and fumbling for words. Now, almost two years into the pandemic, it’s become clear that neurological problems from COVID-19 can linger or intensify. “People arrived at the hospital with severe depression, hallucinations, or paranoia-and then we diagnosed them with COVID,” says Maura Boldrini, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Manhattan’s Columbia University Irving Medical Center. It also impacts other organs, including the brain. “She had COVID, and I believe that it altered her brain,” her sister Jennifer Feist said on NBC’s Today show.Īt the time, doctors were just learning that this new coronavirus doesn’t target only the lungs and heart. Soon after she was released on April 26, she took her own life. They brought her home to Charlottesville, and Breen checked into a psychiatric ward at University of Virginia Medical Center. Her family was alarmed: She was confused, hesitant, nearly catatonic, exhausted.
After a 10-day illness, she returned to work. The 49-year-old doctor first showed symptoms on March 18. But that changed after Breen contracted the virus. She had been serving as medical director at Manhattan’s NewYork Presbyterian Allen Hospital, and she was regarded as brilliant, energetic, and organized. At the height of the COVID-19 tsunami that engulfed New York City in early 2020, a highly respected emergency room doctor, Lorna Breen, died by suicide.
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