7 ms·
From the conclusion: >The results of this postmortem cohort study demonstrated that COVID-19 infection could cause axon injuries and microvasculopathy in olfac
by hammock 5y ago
From the conclusion:
>The results of this postmortem cohort study demonstrated that COVID-19 infection could cause axon injuries and microvasculopathy in olfactory tissue. Overall, patients with smell alterations had more severe olfactory pathology than those with intact smell.
In layman's terms, people who reported loss of smell had damage to the nerves and blood vessels in their nose. That conclusion, and the paper's actual title, is quite a bit more mundane and less alarmist than the submitted title here ("Covid Smell Loss Linked to Damage in Brain").
- exabrial 5y agoSince covid, I've been a lot more conscious of when my sense of smell goes away. 1. Allergies 2. 'normal' Colds 3. Day after a stiff manhattan or two Curious if the cause is all the same
- rhacker 5y agoSince there is no money in the other 3 we'll continue forever to believe those are not the same as COVID's pathway. But great comment - you're probably right.
- Ensorceled 5y agoMy sense of smell waxes and wanes ... it doesn't completely go away, does your sense of smell actually go away completely?
- exabrial 5y agoMine does too. Not in the way it did when I "had covid" though... that was like a blackout. (My covid experience: all I did was lose my smell for 2-3 days. No cough, fever, brain fog, or other issues. Felt fine. Continued to be outdoors, walked/biked the entire week. Avoided anyone/everyone at any visual distance. Positive PCR test.)
- jdminhbg 5y agoI had Covid-related anosmia for a few days, and it was very different from just being stuffed up and unable to smell/taste like with a regular cold. I could stand over e.g. a fire, and instead of smelling smoke, I had a sensation of smelling "nothingness."
- doubled112 5y agoThis is probably the best way to describe it. I was in the shower, squirted shampoo, lathered, and it hit me. Something was missing. I couldn't smell anything. I went so far as to take the bottle and squeeze air from it into my nose. I could feel the puff, but that was it. It was actually a little bit jarring. It was complete loss for a couple of days and got progressively better until back to normal a couple of weeks later.
- vmception 5y agoso basically in this case, they (OP, maybe the authors too) are considering the olfactory tissue "in the nose" to be part of the brain? thats..... extremely ambiguous and explains why my understanding of this COVID phenomena has gone full circle, like where's the limit then? nerves that aren't a part of the head? or would they consider losing a sense of touch in your knee from a dull nerve to be "damage in the brain" as well.
- gaze 5y agoThe neurons contributing to your sense of smell as well as your optic nerve are more or less considered part of your brain. Loss of smell is more or less a canary.
- bredren 5y agoMore detail on axons: > Each neuron in your brain has one long cable that snakes away from the main part of the cell. This cable, several times thinner than a human hair, is called an axon, and it is where electrical impulses from the neuron travel away to be received by other neurons. https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/brain-anatomy/axons-cable-transmission-neurons https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/brain-anatomy/axons-cable-transm...
- Justin_K 5y agoWhen someone get's a nose job, do they also get brain damage as a side effect?
- PheonixPharts 5y agoWhen they get a nose job the region of the body that contains the olfactory bulb is not touched at all since that is in the brain, not in the nose. I posted this image in another comment [0], but it seems there's a misunderstanding of anatomy here. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_system#/media/File:Head_Olfactory_Nerve_Labeled.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_system#/media/File:H...
- 5y ago
- Overtonwindow 5y ago..and by extension those who gained their senses back experienced a ...repair to the nerves and blood vessels in their nose? Is that any different that nerve repair in the brain?
- pvg 5y agoA postmortem study probably doesn't tell us much about those who regained their sense of smell back.
- PheonixPharts 5y agoThe article states: > In the region of *olfactory bulb and olfactory tract*, COVID-19 infection was associated with axon pathology and microvasculopathy, particularly in patients with smell alterations; the olfactory pathology did not result from direct viral injury and may be associated with local inflammation. That is not the same as "nerves and blood vessels in their nose". For those curious here's an image of where the olfactory bulb is [0]. It's pretty clear that any "layman" would define this as "in the brain". I don't think this is alarmist, rather that you are misunderstanding where the region effected is. 0. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Head_Olfactory_Nerve_Labeled.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Head_Olf...
- samatman 5y agoIt's true that the olfactory bulb is a region of the brain, but this is a case where the loss of precision is misleading. "damages the body" is just as accurate as "damages the brain", is just as accurate as "damages the olfactory bulb".
- swasheck 5y agoyes and no. it is somewhat alarmist as the olfactory bulb is anatomically part of the brain and is responsible for initial transmission of the olfactory signals for further processing in the amygdala. it essentially completes the circuit between the olfactory neurons and the amygdala. if the research shows that the amygdala has been damaged, then i'd feel much more comfortable with alarmist "brain damage" headline. even so, the damage itself is devastating. my daughter and wife both suffer from covid-related parosmia. my daughter has dealt with it for ~18 months now and has given up hope of ever getting to enjoy tastes she once loved.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nojito 5y agoNot sure why this is being upvoted. Your olfactory nerves are literally extensions of your brain. Any damage to these nerves equates to brain damage.
- clankyclanker 5y agoIt’s probably a problem of non-specificity: if you say “the brain” some folks will consider just the prefrontal cortex, where thought happens. Olfactory nerves, where the smell happens, is a different enough concept that it might not align with the reader’s preconceptions of “the brain.”
- giraffe_lady 5y agoA common position on HN for many months now has been that the worst damages from covid are the economic and social ones caused by lockdowns. There is going to be a lot of cognitive dissonance around, and resistance to, exploring long-term consequences of the virus itself for this reason.
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoI mean we pretty objectively know that they are at this point.
- rootusrootus 5y agoDo we? It is arguable that much of what people are referring to as a 'lockdown' was voluntary and would have happened in any case. Especially early on, there was surprisingly little variation between jurisdictions that formalized it with regulation, and ones that did not.
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoSchools are the biggest one especially since data seems to indicate it did nothing to improve covid outcomes.
- 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- j_crick 5y ago“Mundane” as we’re getting the same effects from, say, any other everyday activities? Yeah, right. So mundane and regular, just as a common cold.