Cognitive Strike - Covid Accelerating Neurodegeneration
I cast World Breaker
A few days ago, a specific paper was published, the title alone bore implications far and wide, and it didn’t take the media, and social media to pick it up, fast, even Bloomberg covered it. I have a significant amount of articles focusing solely on SARS-CoV-2's effects on the brain, and for a good reason. Here are some of the most pertinent ones.
Parallel electrophysiological abnormalities due to COVID-19 infection and to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia
Post-Covid cognitive decline has been an observable, measurable, and somewhat puzzling mystery, the exact mechanisms that result in such long-term effects are still to be fully uncovered, and it has been my, often repeated, opinion there are multiple mechanisms for such. Regardless, the changes are measurable and among these, the most recent one is the changes in electrophysiological brain activity, a way to measure how neurons and the brain connect.
In almost a third of patients in different studies, such as a meta-analysis of 18 studies with 10.530 patients 3 months after the initial infection, or another report with 230.000 plus patients 6 months after the infection, significant neurological or psychiatric dysfunction was observed. Both go and in and, changes in neurological health will cascade into psychiatric changes. Memory loss, confusion, “brain fog”, sluggish thinking (slowed cognition), and difficulty concentrating are all among the common symptoms in this third of patients, and it will increase.
Covid patients exhibit reduced power in the resting state electroencephalographic (rsEEG) alpha rhythm (8–12 Hz; arousal state and attention). Additionally, both COVID-19 and ADRD patients show widespread increases in the power of delta (<4 Hz) rhythms. The changes in Alpha waves indicated a level of underlying impairment of cognitive function, and an increase in Delta indicates a disruption in brain connectivity and signaling. In simpler terms, these changes indicate you are thinking slower (slow mental processing).
It is not merely the changes in the “electricity system” in the brain that aid in this dysfunction, hypoxia (reduced oxygen levels in an organ, or the entire body), neuroinflammation, autoimmune reactions as a byproduct of the said inflammation, or viral infection (the body will try to regulate whatever damage is going on, and as a paradoxical effect, create long-term damage, ergo short-term gains, long-term pains), and one of the biggest contributors to these changes is alterations in the cerebral vascular system, adding to every single aforementioned effect.
The electrophysiological and metabolic changes observed in Long Covid parallel those seen in Alzheimer's and related dementias, suggesting shared mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Misfolded protein accumulation, commonly associated with neurodegenerative disorders, may be accelerated by Covid, compounding the effects of neuroinflammation and vascular injury.
While “physical injury” is already a problem, the most impactful long-term problem in regards to neurological health is, and will always be changes in its metabolism, it is so important that changes in metabolism in the brain in infants impact long-term psychological health. And Covid causes Central Nervous System and brain hypometabolism, and if Rome has a bioenergy problem, it hinders or impedes its capacity to properly maintain the region. These drastic changes in the nervous system and brain metabolism correlate, directly, with most neuro markers, and imaging too.
In the conclusion and author’s own words.
In conclusion, some individuals with COVID-19 display abnormal intrinsic brain activity and cognitive impairments that resemble those seen in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly ADRD. The evidence presented indicates that COVID-19 and ADRD pathologies share common impacts on synaptic and neurovascular dysfunctions involving astrocyte reactivity and neuroinflammation.
Here is another recent, large systematic review and meta-analysis on the Risk of Cognitive decline and dementia in older adults diagnosed with Covid.
Highlights
• COVID-19 linked to 65 % of new-onset cognitive impairment.
• Time since infection may impact cognitive outcomes.
• Cognitive impairment is an important sequela of COVID-19.
Now I like to refer to this October 2023 article from Harvard.
SARS-CoV-2 Caused More, Deadlier Cases of Sepsis Than Thought
Electronic health records harbor answers about life-threatening immune overreaction early in COVID pandemic
New research suggests that the virus responsible for COVID-19 was a more common and deadly cause of sepsis early in the pandemic than previously assumed — accounting for about one in six cases of sepsis from March 2020 to November 2022.
The results, published online Sept. 29 in JAMA Network Open, suggest that clinicians should rethink how they treat sepsis while also providing a framework for future surveillance of viral sepsis.
As mentioned multiple times during the last 2 years, one of the hallmarks of Endotoxin and Sepsis is the long-term, poorly tracked, meagerly observed sequelae of surviving sepsis, because while Sepsis has significant mortality, surviving in my opinion is one of the biggest contributors to developing many diseases in Harrison’s Internal Medicine. Surviving sepsis exacerbates and accelerates Alzheimer’s by itself.
Both Covid “brain”, neurodegenerative diseases, and sepsis-associated neurodegeneration (SAN) are all present with widespread inflammation in the brain. In Covid the brain immune cells are chronically activated, and there are changes in the CNS, in Sepsis there is systemic inflammation, and changes in clotting thus leading to changes in the CNS. Hypoxia and immune dysregulation are central drivers of these changes, leading to impaired memory, slower processing, confusion and poor concentration.
The slowing of brainwave activity is also shared between all these, and the cognitive problems from the 3 conditions are also similar, memory and cognition are hit in all 3. But remarkably all 3, but especially Covid and Sepsis-associated long-term sequelae share hypoxia and microvascular injury as a main driver of long-term dysfunction. Hypoxia by itself is a powerful modulator of the immune system, especially in the brain. While the initial hit, and the middle of the road (the highly complex, adaptative, and ever-changing immune response) can be distinct, the end result is the same.
Sepsis-associated encephalopathy is present in many survivors of severe ICU cases, but I would go further and argue this condition should be under the umbrella concept of “Post Sepsis Syndrome” (PSS), look at the conceptual representation of PSS and tell me if it reminds you of anything.
I still need to research, and write a lot more articles to formalize my hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is a novel form of sepsis. And here is the catcher and not the first time I mention this. Given my wide range of activities and interests, but especially my forecasting accuracy, my Twitter account is followed very closely by quite Machine Learning people.
2 of them work for the big players, with a third working in the field but not divulging the company, and two of them within days of each other, separately from each other, stated the same. The cognitive decline among the higher end of the cognitive function scale is now observable by these ML researchers among their colleagues and they, themselves are experiencing some level of cognitive dysfunction. The third one now observes among his peers and in children.
My cousin, who works at the C-suite level at Honeywell stated the very same, today. She is now observing all her peers and herself faltering in many cognitive tasks that were par for the course before. Either with the correct pattern-seeking brain, or large enough data sets with machine learning algorithms, or using leading AI models from the big companies (these will fail, quite a bit) you can observe a significant decline in cognitive function and slower cognitive processing, intricated linguistic analysis using a peculiar framework can also give you the same end-result.
In 2021 I forecasted among the many things viruses and especially mRNA vaccines would accelerate, neurodegeneration would be amongst the top ones. The polymorphic chimera that SARS-CoV-2 is, was never meant to actively harm your lungs, it was always 100% a “cognitive strike”, aimed at the brain, but this is a topic for another time, in another way and in pure essay form.
But to end on a higher note, and away from dread, besides supplementation, which costs money in these inflationary times, the best way to deal and heal from all this damage is… exercise. One of the byproducts of all the neurological changes we have gone through here, and recently is the neuropsychiatric changes post-Covid, and the easiest to observe using any metric is anxiety and depression (both go hand-in-hand with the Kynurenine Pathway).
• Physical activity significantly enhances mental health in adults with COVID-19.
• Interventions with ≤5 sessions per week were more effective than those with >5 sessions.
• Interventions ≤2 weeks best improved depression; 3≤7 weeks best reduced anxiety.
• 30<60 minute interventions best improved anxiety; ≥60 minutes best improved depression.
The following is for my own forecasting amusement. In 2021 I wrote, forecasted, and warned that Metformin would be of great help to avoid most, if not the vast majority of Spike Protein-induced systemic dysfunction, regardless of exposure. Prevalent Metformin Use in Adults With Diabetes and the Incidence of Long COVID
If SARS-CoV-2 damage is a myriad of complex interactions between dozens of proteins, myriad of metabolic and cellular pathways, reactivation of dormant virus, and all else, could Metformin actually help avoid long-term damage ? It helps avoid Herpes Zoster reactivation and nerve pain. In Sepsis it helps with organ dysfunction, what about vascular dysfunction ? Helps with clots by modulating platelet activation. Metformin for anyone injured by Covid can help modulate your entire physiology to kickstart the recovery process.
As an ironic end note. Consuming just half a tablespoon of olive oil per day is very helpful for your long-term health. “The consumption of more than 7 g/d of olive oil was associated with a 28% lower risk of dementia-related death compared with never or rarely consuming olive oil, irrespective of diet quality.”
Alas, many mysteries remain, and most of us are now dumber to even contemplate there are still mysteries to uncover. As my old self would say, bitterly, at these times. Lol, lmao even. Or how me and my mentor-friend came to nickname SARS-CoV-2.
The Great Accelerator
Your support is greatly appreciated, thank you ! You can also buy me a coffee whenever you feel like it.
Between the last article and today's I have been experimenting with a variation of peptide dosage, and found out that for my particular circumstance, I need to go higher otherwise healing takes too long, and I must heal as fast as possible.
Among other things, so thank you for your patience and for the supporters sticking around =P
You are well? ☕
Thank you for this, I'll need to give this dedicated reading time (and a re-read of past written work). So many I know are mentally declining right before my eyes! 20 years of acceleration in a few, maybe only 5 for others. Actively seeking good times with them. Laugh with them!
Nerd out moment: Olive oil is 1 of what I call the holy 3 repeated, together throughout the Bible (I'm sure some scholar has written plenty about it!). Bread/wheat, wine, oil. I wonder what combo of these may equal metformin/berberine? Hmmm. I emphasize these three highly symbolic items for both spiritual and physical health. It is a thing hidden in complexity. 😁