Covid-19: the presence of prolonged cognitive after-effects confirmed by two studies

Unveiled a few days apart, two studies looked at the consequences of a Covid infection in the long term. They highlight a prolonged impact on the cognitive abilities of affected patients, with more pronounced consequences in the oldest people.

Not a full recovery

This work, published in the journals The Lancet et Nature Medicine concerned different groups of patients. When one study focused on young and healthy subjects, the second followed a cohort of older people, 54 years old on average. The latter had in common that they had been affected by a severe Covid-19 infection.

If the researchers’ conclusions are consistent, it is because they each highlight a prolonged alteration of cognitive faculties, directly linked to the infection. This is expressed more or less markedly depending on age: quite reduced in young people, it manifests itself more pronounced in older individuals.

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“Covid-19 is not always a ‘one shot’ that we get rid of completely”confided (new window) au Monde professor of epidemiology Mahmoud Zureik. After reading this work, he notes that if the consequences vary depending on criteria such as age, cognitive functions may be altered in the long term.

What are the concrete effects of these after-effects? A decline in cognitive performance, particularly what is described as “executive”. Mental processes deployed by our brain to cope and adapt to new situations. Whether it is solving a riddle, finding the solution to a problem or understanding social relationships with individuals we meet.

Another element highlighted by the researchers: an atrophy of the gray matter, this part of the nervous system containing the bodies of neurons. It is notably responsible for our sensorimotor activity, as well as cognitive functions such as reading, calculation, attention or memory.