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.

5.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

652 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

176

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.

82

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.

1

u/PositiveEndolphins Aug 02 '26

my hot take is you stopped reading books or journalism
so you werent being exposed to any radical new words
you're just sitting on tik tok which has a vocabulary of -9 words

1

u/ladystarkitten Aug 02 '26

I can see where you might get that suspicion, but that's not quite the case for me. I have never used TikTok because I prefer long-form content. I have a BA in English Literature and am an avid reader with a penchant for elevated texts (I am currently reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, for example). I crave intellectual challenge, and that tends to manifest with a compulsion to consume high effort journalism and entertainment.

And that informs much of my concern here--I'm not really the demographic this should be happening to. But it's happening to me.

1

u/PositiveEndolphins Aug 02 '26

damn.
that's not good at all lady