Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors noticed that for what was originally described as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 seemed to have a strong effect on the brain, causing everything from loss of taste and smell and brain fog to, in serious cases, stroke. Years later, cognitive decline, changes in brain size and structure, depression and suicidal thinking, tremors, seizures, memory loss, and new or worsened dementia have also been linked to SARS-CoV-2 infections. In some cases, these longer-term problems occur even in patients who had mild COVID-19.
The question now is what, exactly, is going on in the brains of people infected by SARS-CoV-2—and whether the damage can be reversed.
Not long after the pandemic began, Dr. Avindra Nath, clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke…