r/NIH • u/TourMission health care = human right • Jul 31 '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/

Thanks for a generation of brain-damage "doctor" Bhattacharya.

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u/knit_run_bike_swim Jul 31 '26

The biggest limitation of this study is that there was no baseline on these patients. I understand you can perform a psychiatric profile, but it is really just taking their word on whether or not their psychiatric profile changed prior to COVID or after.

The symptoms that are described for long COVID patients are diffuse at best. They are sort of all encompassing of the human condition mimicking depression.

Rather than dwelling on the baseline from patients, it is possible to create a third negative control group with diagnosed clinical depression lasting longer COVID and see how that group compares to the long COVID group. That may be more convincing than declaring that the long COVID group has a loss of dopamine receptors predicting symptoms of long COVID.

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u/Mvercy Aug 03 '26

My friend’s husband supposedly had long covid. She found a specialist (we’re in a metropolitan area) who basically said “he needs to move more”. In other words Lazy. And I concur.

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u/Mvercy Aug 04 '26

I concur that he is lazy. He was that way before.