3 ms·

Shouldn't this apply to brain fog outside of COVID? Was this obvious idea of scanning the brain for brain fog never tried before?

• H8crilA 3y ago
  Long COVID shares a lot of symptoms with ME/CFS. And yes it has been researched before, but neurological illnesses are usually beyond our knowledge at this point. Additional funding/attention to Long COVID could help with both.
  • xattt 3y ago
    There is probably a hidden bias in play, in that people who suffer from CFS are overwhelmed with daily tasks and are unable to engage in advocacy in promoting research.
    • jijijijij 3y ago
      Very few people suffering from any serious disease are able to engage in advocacy in promoting research. I mean, debilitating fatigue itself isn't exactly an exclusive, or rare symptom. The main issue is probably how little we know about the body in detail, really. Especially the immune system. And if your starting point is a diagnosis of "well, it's nothing else", that's a moving target, anyway. I guess, you could count a lot of basic research as CFS research.
    • GuB-42 3y ago
      But their loved ones can. The victims of severe diseases rarely do the advocacy themselves, they are too busy trying to get better. The ones who care for them however, and have to bear the external costs will do everything they can to get people attention.
• sharts 3y ago
  Apparently not. It seems like a lot of science things we hear about are about obvious things. Maybe most obvious things don’t get funded so the research cannot be done.
• neolefty 3y ago
  Yes, I think the research team is saying exactly that: > "The concept that many other viral infections that lead to post-viral syndromes might drive blood vessel leakage in the brain is potentially game changing and is under active investigation by the team.” — Matthew Campbell, Professor in Genetics and Head of Genetics at Trinity, and Principal Investigator at FutureNeuro.
• jijijijij 3y ago
  > Was this obvious idea of scanning the brain for brain fog never tried before? > The team led by scientists at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology and neurologists in the School of Medicine have also uncovered a novel form of MRI scan A typical clinical MRI machine has a resolution of about 2mm. Small lesions are invisible to it. They are expensive to run and, more importantly, a scan takes a long time, so you usually only do some sort of specialized detail measurements, not a detailed "full picture" of everything. MRI machines typically run non-stop to be economically viable (just the helium coolant costs something like 200k$ per year), consequently your research likely competes with other teams', I presume. The contrasting agents able to cross the blood-brain-barrier are not substances without concern. They tend to accumulate in the brain, I guess people may be extra cautious with a hypothesis of hyperimmunity, or leaky blood vessels. I am pretty sure a standard MRI scan of the brain did not show the described clinical evidence before. Also: > Undertaking this complicated clinical research study at a time of national crisis and when our hospital system was under severe pressure is a testament to the skill and resource of our medical trainees and staff.
• springogeek 3y ago
  It might do, but I suspect that it couldn't be studied so well because it's hard to account for arbitrary infections. Part of the article talks about how testing and confirmation of a COVID diagnosis was a requirement here, which helps narrow down the study.