Long-Term Effects of COVID-19

A significant share of people who recover from acute COVID-19 infection continue to experience symptoms lasting months or years, including cognitive impairment, fatigue, mood disturbances, and neurological deficits that collectively fall under the label of long COVID or post-acute COVID-19 syndrome. Neurologists and neuropathologists are working to understand how SARS-CoV-2 affects the central nervous system — whether through direct viral invasion of brain tissue, systemic inflammation, disrupted blood-brain barrier integrity, or some combination of these mechanisms. The stakes are high because even a modest rate of lasting neurological harm across a global pandemic translates into an enormous burden of disability. Active research questions include why some patients develop persistent neuropsychiatric symptoms while others recover fully, and whether the neuropathological changes observed in severe cases also occur in milder infections that never required hospitalization.

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Keywords

Neurologic ManifestationsPost-acute COVID-19 SyndromeLong COVIDNeuropsychiatric PresentationsNeuroinvasion PotentialRespiratory Failure