People with long COVID show enlargement in a key brain structure that has also been tied to Alzheimer’s disease and worsening dementia, according to a new study from researchers affiliated with NYU Langone Health.
The study, which NYU Langone said was published recently in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia, found that patients reporting long COVID had a choroid plexus roughly 10 percent larger than the same structure in people who had fully recovered from an initial infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. The choroid plexus is a structure in the brain that the researchers describe as central to the analysis.
According to NYU Langone, the size of the choroid plexus was associated with known blood markers of Alzheimer’s disease and with worsening dementia, suggesting that long COVID and Alzheimer’s may damage the brain in some of the same ways. The institution framed the finding as evidence of overlapping mechanisms rather than a demonstration that long COVID causes Alzheimer’s disease.
NYU Langone disclosed the results as part of a research roundup distributed by its media relations office in February. The publication’s own writeup of the study is available through NYU Langone Health.
