Researchers in Finland have found no evidence of widespread brain inflammation among people with long COVID. The findings instead link more severe symptoms to increased activity in brain regions involved in emotion and memory.
A team at the University of Turku examined 14 people with long COVID using PET and MRI scans. They compared results with scans from 11 healthy volunteers and 13 patients with multiple sclerosis. No meaningful differences in brain inflammation markers appeared between the long COVID group and healthy controls. The long COVID patients also showed far less white matter inflammation than the multiple sclerosis group.