University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, 61 adults about 8 months after COVID were scanned by MRI.
Those with persistent smell loss showed structural changes in the amygdala linked to smell and emotion, along with higher anxiety and depression scores.
Among adults with COVlD-related changes in smell and taste, 23% experience severe or total loss.
Importantly, the cumulative burden will increase with repeat infections, it diminishes quality of life, & it indicates neurological damage.
Nearly 7 in 10 COVID survivors tested didn't know they had a dulled sense of smell.
"Even if they don't notice it, COVID-19 survivors' sense of smell may remain impaired for years after infection"
How COVID Might Sow Chaos in the Brain
SARS-CoV-2 appears to travel widely across the cerebral cortex
Headaches, hallucinations, vivid dreams, smell & taste anomalies, strokes and seizures
80% of COVID patients encountered neurological complications
More loss of smell and taste, insomnia and pronounced anxiety are new symptoms of latest Covid variant as the virus continues to mutate unrestrained, is neuroinvasive, persists in the body and has multiple effects on the brain:
SARS2 can invade your brain.
All variants are neuroinvasive.
Neuroinvasion and anosmia are independent phenomena upon infection.
SARS2 can travel retrogradely and anterogradely along axons in neuron-epithelial networks.
Starting thread on potential treatments for anosmia / parosmia (loss of/altered smell & taste) "Randomized clinical trial olfactory dysfunction after COVID-19: olfactory rehabilitation therapy vs. intervention treatment w/ Palmitoylethanolamide & Luteolin"
"Roughly 5% of people who experience smell loss during COVID-19 will develop long-term anosmia, according to Dr. Bradley J. Goldstein, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Duke University Hospital.
The impact is more drastic than most people realize."
"Instead of disease severity, loss of smell seems a more promising avenue for predicting who develops persistent cognitive changes after SARS-CoV-2 infection."
Loss Of Smell Linked To Long Term Covid Cognitive Impairment
"Covid study finds millions have long-term smell or taste problems
Researchers say about 5% of infected adults may develop long-lasting changes to sense of smell or taste"
Brain damage after even mild Covid in kids: Omicron is much better at invading children's noses, predicts memory issues. "Severity of smell dysfunction after infection may be a better predictor of long-term cognitive impairment than severity of COVID-19"
