People who claimed neuropsychiatric symptoms months after acute COVID-19 had no more brain swelling than those who had never had COVID, a Yale research paper has found.Self-Reported Neuropsychiatric Post–COVID-19 Condition and CSF Markers of Neuroinflammation was conducted by seven Yale scholars and published November 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network.Participants were enrolled in the COVID Mind Study at Yale University if they self-reported new or worsened neuropsychiatric symptoms (neuro-PCC) at least three months after laboratory–confirmed COVID-19. Participants were excluded if they had any history of severe neurological or psychiatric illness, severe immunocompromising condition or were receiving immune-suppressive medications at the time of the study.Against these 37 participants were a control group of 22 asymptomatic participants. They were recruited prior to 2020 to serve as controls for other studies plus an asymptomatic participant enrolled in 2022 with no history of COVID-19 illness. All participants had 30cc’s of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) removed.The paper reported, “The CSF white blood cell count and protein levels were not elevated in the neuro-PCC group nor was the CSF to blood albumin ratio, which is altered under conditions of blood-brain barrier breakdown. CSF IgG index and a comparison of oligoclonal bands in the CSF and blood did not reveal evidence for intrathecal immunoglobulin production.”The paper concluded “persistent central nervous system immune activation is not a primary driver of neurological long COVID-19.”On Substack, American hematologist and oncologist Dr. Vinay Prasad said he was unsurprised by the results.“The authors’ paper confirms my impression — the null hypothesis— that to date, I have never seen any persuasive data that COVID has any long term biological consequence beyond what one would expect getting equally sick from any respiratory virus,” he wrote.“Yes, intubation is a long path to recover and yes, you can have symptoms after a flu or COVID for weeks, but, no, there is nothing special about COVID in this regard. It does not attack brains, etc.”The paper was funded by the National Institutes of Health and The Merck Investigator Studies Program. No scholars have cited the paper yet, though it has been read almost 3,000 times.
