Thought of the Day - July 30 2021 - COVID Makes You Stupider

No, I don't mean believing all the misinformation around COVID, I mean individuals who have recovered from COVID-19, including those who no longer have any symptoms, still exhibit significant 'cognitive deficits'. A large study, that aimed to find out how COVID-19 affected mental health and cognition, analysed an intelligence test from 81,337 participants taken throughout 2020. Of those participants, nearly 13,000 reported they had contracted the Novel Coronavirus. This included 275 participants who had completed the intelligence test both before and after contracting COVID-19.

Eliminating most of the other factors: age, sex, handedness, ethnicity, first language, country of residence, occupational status, earnings etc. they found that those who had had COVID-19 underperformed when compared to those who never contracted the disease.

The cognitive deficits were particularly pronounced for test tasks that involved reasoning, problem-solving, spatial planning and target detection. Those who had had COVID-19 actually fared better when they were asked to complete simpler tasks, such as working memory span and emotional processing.

“These results accord with reports of 'Long COVID', where ‘brain fog’, trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words, are common,” the authors noted. “Recovery from a COVID-19 infection may be associated with particularly pronounced problems in aspects of higher cognitive or ‘executive’ function”. The authors said their results appear to show that COVID-19 infection is associated with cognitive deficits that can persist, such as in cases of 'Long COVID', where symptoms can last for months after the initial illness ( Thought of the Day - June 9 2021 -Long COVID Revisited ).

The level of underperformance was also dependent on the severity of illness. The study said those who had been placed on a ventilator during the pandemic exhibited the greatest cognitive deficits, so much so that it equated to a seven-point drop in IQ. The drop in intelligence among those who had been ventilated was also larger than the deficits observed in patients who had previously suffered a stroke or who reported learning disabilities.

This, like many of the 'Long COVID' symptoms, also probably occurs with other severe viral infections and associated interventions. Due to its magnitude and attention, COVID does provide a unique opportunity to better understand these issues.

Loss of brainpower just provides another reason to avoid getting COVID.

Cheers

Cliff