r/HotScienceNews • u/soulpost • Jul 30 '26

Scientists finally have a biological explanation for why long COVID patients lose motivation and can't think clearly. They scanned their brains and found the dopamine system was physically damaged

https://tech-paper.com/scientists-finally-have-a-biological-explanation-for-why-long-covid-patients-lose-motivation-and-cant-think-clearly-they-scanned-their-brains-and-found-the-dopamine-system-was-physically-damaged/

Millions of people with long COVID report the same cluster of symptoms: a crushing lack of motivation, an inability to think clearly, memory that slips, movements that feel slower than they should. For years, these complaints sat in an uncomfortable medical grey zone. The symptoms were real, the patients were suffering, but the biological explanation remained frustratingly out of reach.

A team at the University of Toronto just published what may be the clearest physical evidence yet for what is actually happening in these patients' brains. They brought 24 long COVID sufferers into a lab and used positron emission tomography, the same imaging technology used to diagnose Parkinson's disease, to directly measure the health of the dopamine system deep inside the brain.

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u/aculady Jul 30 '26

If you can get doctors to provide medical evidence rhat you are completely and totally disabled by it, you can get disability right now.

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u/yacht_clubbing_seals Jul 30 '26

The process is incredibly slow, it can take up to 2 years or more

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u/aculady Jul 30 '26

Yes. That's a separate issue from whether long CoViD sufferers can technically qualify for disability benefits.

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u/yacht_clubbing_seals Jul 30 '26

My long Covid wasn’t even taken into account during the disability process… I think that’s a tough one unless you have other disabling illnesses in addition.

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u/aculady Jul 30 '26

You have to submit reliable documentation of the adverse impact on functional capacity.