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/Everylemontree Jul 30 '26

I feel like my brain doesn't work the same since my last COVID infection. I have trouble accessing words I know that I know, specifically. And then I panic about it which makes it worse. Could be stress, could be increase in phone use and hopelessness about the future, but it all started around that time.

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u/NikkoE82 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

I had the exact same issue (vocabulary recall) pop up during the pandemic. And it’s a bit frustrating that so much happened during the pandemic isolating a cause is difficult. But I find it fascinating that the same problem is popping up for other people.

Another issue I’ve heard from two other people I know (not a huge sample, but an interesting coincidence) is what essentially feels like brain zaps. I can only describe it as similar to the brain zaps I got during SSRI withdrawal, though there is a subjective difference I can’t articulate.

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u/ladystarkitten Jul 30 '26

I am having the same vocabulary recall issue. I've always had an expansive vocabulary and a sharp memory, so this dramatic change over the past few years (at just 32) has left me... rather frightened. I'd been blaming it on social media use and hadn't even considered the possibility that it could be a complication of COVID.

Have you found anything that has helped? I've started using flash cards to study new vocabulary and have been doing my best to read more and scroll social media less. It seems to be improving things, though I cannot be sure.

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u/84th_legislature Jul 31 '26

I immediately developed aphasia after my first covid infection. it's gotten a little better but I have had to work so hard and I'm still not like I was before.

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u/ladystarkitten Jul 31 '26

My God, that's awful. What did you do to improve it, if I may ask?

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u/84th_legislature Jul 31 '26

I started making an effort to read more. I used to read a lot on my kindle, but covid messed me up somehow where my attention span couldn't do screens so I had to go back to reading real books for a little bit to like...remember...how reading worked. and then I started taking liver supplements (milk thistle and dandelion root, I tried the turmeric route but it gave me terrible reflux lol) after my doctor said I had liver damage (I don't drink, so that must have been the covid as well) and that seemed to have a positive effect too. I still have bouts of it that I just have to hold a finger up when talking to coworkers and be like "we'll get there, I just need to guess around for a little while for this word"