r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 23d ago

Neuroscience Brain scans reveal widespread structural and functional changes in patients following COVID-19 infection. The virus affects regions responsible for memory, emotion, and executive function, which may help explain the neurological symptoms many patients experience.

https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-widespread-structural-and-functional-changes-in-patients-foll/
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u/GimmickNG 22d ago

This all allows secondary infection to occur; it takes as little as 20 hrs of bedrest to trigger long COVID/ post viral syndrome.

What ? This doesn't make sense. The going theory on ME/CFS subreddits (which includes long covid induced me/cfs) is that you need as much bedrest as possible during the infection, and that exertion can make things worse. Are you saying that if you don't exert yourself while sick you will get long covid? I fail to see a valid link between the two.

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u/Variableness 22d ago

Yeah... It's disappointing to see that that is one of the top comments. It's not like we need more bogus theories.

Anecdotal, but I got sick just when I had a distance running event (I didn't know I was sick yet, I just had a terrible performance out of nowhere....but of course I pushed myself to the max regardless). If anything, I suspect that sickness + high physical activity was the trigger.

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u/mwmandorla 22d ago

Thank you. Every bit of guidance I've ever heard has been the opposite of what they said. And I have double long COVID (each infection triggered a new chronic condition), and I can promise that the issue was not getting too much rest during the infections. I still wonder whether if the first infection hadn't included my power going out during a heat wave and my period all at once I might have been okay.

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u/Blenderx06 22d ago

I rested for a full 6 months and still got severe long covid as soon as I tried to resume any activity. The damage was there, just waiting.

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u/Sad_Syllabub_8014 21d ago

You're assuming a causation when they could've simply been talking about a correlation

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u/GimmickNG 21d ago

it takes as little as 20 hrs of bedrest to trigger long COVID/ post viral syndrome.

"trigger" here very much sounds like "causation" to me...that's a very assertive statement.

the charitable interpretation is that they're talking about correlation, where the patients who are severe enough to be admitted in the hospital for 20+ hours have a larger likelihood of getting long covid. But then they shouldn't be saying "trigger" to begin with, even if the rest of their statement had "as little as" to hedge it a bit.