Coronavirus did quite some damage to the world as it spread. People tried adapting to the change in hopes that it will soon be over. But having witnessed the first anniversary of covid-19 in November and seeing new strains appear, that hope has gradually vanished.
Now, it has been discovered that one of the new strains can damage the brain. You might say that the original strain was also doing it, so that’s not new. But here is the thing. The original strain was reportedly making people blind aside from psychological illnesses such as depression. The new strain, however, can damage the brain without infecting it. So the scenario is, coronavirus strand will not have to invade the brain tissue.
COVID-19 new strain research
To come to this finding, researchers examined 19 bodies of people who died due to COVID-19. They focused on the brain regions that were more likely to be affected by the disease; the olfactory bulb and the brainstem. These two regions control smell, breathing, and heart rate. 14 out of 19 bodies had damaged blood vessels in these regions. These areas had inflamed surroundings, which was the result of the body’s immune response. However, the virus itself was not present in the brain. The research author Dr. Avindra Nath from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, ‘We were completely surprised.’
The researchers’ team believes that the observations from the covid-19 dead bodies were associated with what they usually found in neuro-inflammatory diseases.
“In the future, we plan to study how novel coronavirus harms the brain’s blood vessels and whether that produces some of the short- and long-term symptoms we see in patients,” the researcher said.
So it even more important now to exercise all the measures to protect oneself against COVID-19.
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