A small new study published Tuesday by scientists at the US National Institutes of Health suggests that the immune response triggered by coronavirus infections damages the brain's blood vessels and could be responsible for long COVID symptoms.
A study published by scientists at the US National Institutes of Health says one's own antibodies attack the cells lining the brain's blood vessels, causing damage.
Rather than detecting evidence of Covid in the brain, the team found it was the people's own antibodies that attacked the cells lining the brain's blood vessels, causing inflammation and damage. "We had previously shown blood vessel damage and inflammation in patients' brains at autopsy, but we didn't understand the cause of the damage. I think in this paper we've gained important insight into the cascade of events."
The scientists discovered that antibodies produced against COVID-19 mistakenly targeted cells that form the "blood-brain barrier" — a structure designed to keep harmful invaders out of the brain while allowing necessary substances to pass. The team found that normal cellular processes in the areas targeted by the attack were severely disrupted, which had implications for things such as their ability to de-toxify and to regulate metabolism.