Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 10 to 30 per cent of the general population has experienced some form of virus-induced cognitive impairment, including trouble concentrating, brain fog or memory loss. This led a team of researchers to explore the mechanism behind this phenomenon and pinpoint a specific protein that appears to be driving these cognitive changes. A new study published in Nature Immunology, led by researchers at Western and Washington University School of Medicine in St.
Louis, Missouri, also looked at how vaccination may help reduce the impacts of memory loss following COVID-19 infections. The research team, including Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry professor Dr. Robyn Klein, who joined Western from Washington University used rodent models to better understand how COVID-19 impacts cognitive impairment.
"We looked carefully at their brains during acute infection and then later after recovery to discover what was abnormal in terms of the different immune cells trafficking into the brain and their effects on neural cells," said Klein, who holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neurovirology and Neuroimmunology. Klein said she was concerned by reports of cognitive impairment in the early days of the pandemic, which led researchers to question whether the virus was invading the central nervous system. Klein's previous work studied viruses that invade the brain.
We had previously shown that the virus could not be detected in human or hamster .