Why could the pandemic cause brain inflammation in people who never suffered from COVID?
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, reports of psychological distress, fatigue and brain fog have significantly increased even among people never infected.
So what is causing these results?
Researchers at Harvard Medical School looked at otherwise healthy people who were subject to COVID lockdowns. They did brain imaging, blood samples and behavioral tests.
The results were published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. What the researchers found were markers in the blood that show brain inflammation.
The study’s author says the findings support the idea that stressful events can have real world effects on our brain health. Though he stresses the findings are preliminary and more research needs to be done.
But these results do point to possible strategies for dealing with the mental health impacts of stress.
Symptoms could be reduced through medication to reduce inflammation, but also with other tactics like exercise.
At the very least the research shows this pandemic has had a real impact on human health, even for those who were never infected.