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Whether or not you’ve contracted COVID-19, your brain has likely changed in recent months. The virus itself can cause a number of neurological problems, along with anxiety and depression. The isolation and worry caused by the pandemic can similarly alter our brain chemistry and cause mood disorders.
In our new article, published in Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, we have investigated how to best overcome pandemic-related brain changes.
Let’s start with the COVID-19 infection. In addition to mood disorders, common symptoms include fatigue, headaches, memory loss, and attention problems. There may be several reasons for these brain changes, including inflammation and cerebrovascular events (a syndrome caused by the interruption of the blood supply to the brain).
Research suggests that the virus can access the brain through the forebrain olfactory bulb, which is important for the processing of smell. Loss of smell is a symptom in many COVID-19 patients.
As part of the system responsible for your sense of smell, the olfactory bulb sends information about smell to be processed further in other brain regions, including the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the hippocampus, which play an important role in emotion. learning and memory.
In addition to having extensive connections to other regions of the brain, the olfactory bulb is rich in the chemical dopamine, which is important for pleasure, motivation, and action. It may be that COVID-19 alters the levels of dopamine and other chemicals, such as serotonin and acetylcholine, in the brain, but we still can’t say for sure. All of these chemicals are known to be involved in attention, learning, memory, and mood.
These brain changes are likely responsible for the mood, fatigue, and cognitive changes that COVID-19 patients typically experience. This, in turn, may be the basis for reported symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression in patients who have contracted the virus.
But it is not only people who have contracted the COVID-19 virus who have experienced increased anxiety and depression during the pandemic. Excessive concern about contracting or transmitting the virus to other family members, as well as isolation and loneliness, can also change our brain chemistry.
Repeated stress is a major trigger for persistent inflammation in the body, which can also affect the brain and shrink the hippocampus and thus affect our emotions. Stress can also affect serotonin and cortisol levels in the brain, which can affect our mood. Eventually, these changes can cause symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Mental exercise
However, the great thing about the brain is that it is incredibly plastic, which means that it can be changed and compensated for damage. Even serious conditions, like memory loss and depression, can be improved by doing things that alter brain function and chemistry.
Our article looks at promising solutions to combat the symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression, in COVID-19 patients and others.
We already know that exercise and mindfulness training, techniques that help us stay in the present, are helpful when it comes to combating brain stress. In fact, studies have shown beneficial structural and functional changes in the brain’s prefrontal cortex (involved in planning and decision-making), hippocampus, and amygdala after mindfulness training.
One study showed a higher density of gray matter, the tissue that contains most of the brain’s cell bodies and a key component of the central nervous system, in the left hippocampus after eight weeks of training (compared to controls).
Importantly, these are all regions that are affected by the COVID-19 virus. Additionally, gamified cognitive training can also help improve attention, memory function, and increase motivation. Those who have persistent or severe mental health symptoms may require a clinical evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist. In such cases, there are pharmacological and psychological treatments available, such as antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy.
Since many countries have not yet fully emerged from the lockdown, and there are long delays in access to healthcare, modern techniques such as wearable devices (activity trackers) and digital platforms (mobile applications), which can be easily integrated into daily life , they are promising.
For example, activity trackers can monitor things like heart rate and sleep patterns, indicating when the user can benefit from activities like meditation, exercise, or extra sleep. There are also apps that can help you lower your stress levels.
These techniques are likely to be beneficial to all and can help us better promote cognitive resilience and mental health, preparing us for future critical events such as global pandemics. As a society, we must anticipate future challenges to the health, cognition, and well-being of our brains. We should use these techniques in schools to promote lifelong resilience from an early age.
Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Cambridge; Christelle Langley, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, and Deniz Vatansever, Junior Principal Investigator, Fudan University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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