Long COVID linked to Alzheimer’s disease mechanisms

Diseases cause damage in some of the same ways

2026-02-10

(Press-News.org) The increased size of, and lesser blood supply to, a key brain structure in patients with Long COVID tracks with known blood markers of Alzheimer’s disease and greater levels of dementia, a new study finds.

Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the study concerns the choroid plexus (CP), a network of blood vessels lined by cells that produce cerebrospinal fluid, which cushions the brain and forms a protective barrier between the fluid and the bloodstream. The CP regulates immune system responses (inflammation) and waste clearance in the brain. Past studies show that the COVID-19 virus can damage the cells lining CP blood vessels.

Published online Feb. 10 in Alzheimer's & Dementia, the new work found that patients reporting Long COVID had a 10% larger CP than those who had fully recovered from an initial infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. Further, CP size increases tracked with blood levels of proteins that increase as Alzheimer’s disease worsens, such as pTau217, and with blood levels of others that rise in response to brain injury, like glial fibrillary acidic protein.

The research team also found that patients with larger CPs performed an average of 2% worse on a standard 30-point screening test, the Mini-Mental State Exam, which records changes in memory and attention.

“Our work suggests that long-term immune reactions caused in some cases after an initial COVID infection may come with swelling that damages a critical brain barrier in the choroid plexus,” said senior study author Yulin Ge, MD, a professor in the Department of Radiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Physical, molecular, and clinical evidence suggests that a larger CP may be an early warning sign of future Alzheimer’s-like cognitive decline.”

Long COVID is a condition in which symptoms of infection with the pandemic virus last for months or even years after the initial infection. About 780 million people worldwide have been infected so far, with some of those experiencing long-term fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, loss of smell or taste, depression, and many other symptoms.

Linking Changes

For the study, the research team recruited 179 participants, including 86 patients with neurological symptoms of Long COVID, 67 people who had fully recovered from COVID-19 without lasting symptoms, and 26 individuals who had never had COVID-19.

Each participant received advanced MRI scans of their brains, which enabled the team to find patterns amid the brain scans, blood tests, and cognitive exams of the three patient groups.

The tests revealed that structural changes seen in the CP blood vessels of Long COVID patients both expanded CP volume and reduced flow through its blood vessels. While the mechanisms behind this are not yet confirmed, the team’s theory is that the changes reflect inflammation-driven CP “vascular remodeling,” in which layers of cells lining blood vessels thicken in response to long-term activation by immune cells and signals. Such inflammation comes with surrounding stromal fibrosis, the buildup of scarlike tissue that further hinders blood flow.
Impaired blood perfusion in the CP may reduce CSF production, lead to waste buildup, and compromise the integrity of the blood-CSF barrier, the study authors say.

“Our next step is to follow these patients over time to see if the brain changes we identified can predict who will develop long-term cognitive issues,” said senior study author Thomas Wisniewski, MD, the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman Professor in the Department of Neurology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “A larger, long-term study will be needed to clarify whether these CP alterations are a cause or a consequence of the neurological symptoms, which promises to better focus treatment design efforts,” added Wisniewski, director of the Center for Cognitive Neurology at NYU Langone Health.

Along with Ge, study authors from the Department of Radiology are first author Huize Pang, Li Jiang, Chenyang Li, and Zhe Sun. In addition to Wisniewski, authors from the Department of Neurology were Jennifer Frontera, Allal Boutajangout, Ludovic Debure, Mobeena Ghuman, Alok Vedvyas, and Arjun Masurkar.

This research was supported by National Institute on Aging grants R01AG077422, U24 NS135568, and P30AG066512.

About NYU Langone Health
NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation for four years in a row, and U.S. News & World Report recently ranked four of its clinical specialties No. 1 in the country. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 320 outpatient locations in the New York area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise.

Media Inquiries
Greg Williams
Phone: 212-404-3500
Gregory.Williams@NYULangone.org

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study reveals how chills develop and support the body's defense against infection

2026-02-10

When running a fever during infection, we often feel chills, which prompt us to take action to warm ourselves, such as turning on a heater or adding layers of clothing. Increased body temperature helps inhibit pathogen growth and boosts immune cell activity. A recent rat study by a Nagoya University team identified the neural mechanism underlying chills, a cold sensation that supports the body's response to infection. The findings were published in The Journal of Physiology. When mammals are infected, their immune system produces a pyrogenic ...

Half of the world’s coral reefs suffered major bleaching during the 2014–2017 global heatwave

2026-02-10

Benefits to society from coral reefs, including fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, pharmaceutical discovery and more, are estimated at about $9.8 trillion per year. For the first time, an international team led by Smithsonian researchers estimated the extent of coral bleaching worldwide during a global marine heatwave, finding that half of the world’s reefs experienced significant damage. Another heatwave began in 2023 and is ongoing. The analysis was published today in Nature Communications. It takes two partners to make a coral: a tiny animal related to a jellyfish that secretes the hard ...

AI stethoscope can help spot ‘silent epidemic’ of heart valve disease earlier than GPs, study suggests

2026-02-10

Artificial intelligence could help doctors detect serious heart valve disease years earlier, potentially saving thousands of lives, a new study suggests. Researchers led by the University of Cambridge analysed heart sounds from nearly 1,800 patients using an AI algorithm trained to recognise valve disease, a condition that often goes undiagnosed until it becomes life-threatening. The AI correctly identified 98% of patients with severe aortic stenosis, the most common form of valve disease requiring surgery, and 94% of those with severe mitral regurgitation, where the heart valve doesn’t fully close and blood leaks backward across the valve. The technology, which works with ...

Researchers rebuild microscopic circadian clock that can control genes

2026-02-10

Our circadian clocks play a crucial role in our health and well-being, keeping our 24-hour biological cycles in sync with light and dark exposure. Disruptions in the rhythms of these clocks, as with jet lag and daylight saving time, can throw our daily functioning out of sync. University of California San Diego scientists are now getting closer to understanding how these clocks operate at their core. In the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, researchers based in UC San Diego’s Department of Molecular Biology (School of Biological Sciences) and Center for Circadian Biology, along with national ...

Controlled “oxidative spark”: a surprising ally in brain repair

2026-02-10

Oxidative stress is a direct consequence of an excess in the body of so-called “free radicals” – reactive, unstable molecules that contain oxygen. Free radicals are normal metabolic by-products and also help to relay signals in the body. In turn, oxidative stress (an overload of these molecules) can be caused by lifestyle, environmental and biological factors such as smoking, high alcohol consumption, poor diet, stress, pollution, radiation, industrial chemicals, and chronic inflammation. When this occurs, it creates an imbalance ...

Football-sized fossil creature may have been one of the first land animals to eat its veggies

2026-02-10

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with backbones to join them. But for tens of millions of years, these early land-dwelling creatures only ate their fellow animals, rather than grazing on greenery. In a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, scientists describe the 307-million-year-old fossil of one of the earliest known land vertebrates that evolved the ability to eat plants. “This is one of the oldest known four-legged animals to eat its veggies,” ...

Study finds mindfulness enables more effective endoscopies in awake patients

2026-02-10

A new study has shown that mindfulness helps patients to relax during an endoscopy, allowing doctors to carry out detailed examinations without the need for sedation or general anaesthesia. Researchers say mindfulness, combined with advanced endoscopy techniques and state-of-the-art digital technology, enables procedures to be done to a higher standard in awake patients than is currently possible under general anaesthesia or sedation. This means there is less chance of cancers being missed, with fewer associated complications, and less cost ...

Young scientists from across the UK shortlisted for largest unrestricted science prize

2026-02-10

10 February 2026 – London – The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences today announced the Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. The Awards recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering. On Tuesday, 24 February, Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, will reveal the three 2026 Laureates at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in London. Now in its ninth year, each Blavatnik Awards Laureate will receive an unrestricted £100,000 (US$135,000) prize, while the remaining six Finalists ...

Bison hunters abandoned long-used site 1,100 years ago to adapt to changing climate

2026-02-10

On the Great Plains of North America, bison were hunted for thousands of years before populations collapsed to near extinction due to overexploitation in the late 1800s. But long before then, bison hunters used various strategies and different types of sites, sometimes switching between sites. Now, researchers sought to understand why hunting stopped when bison continued to be present at the Bergstrom site in central Montana, where bison were hunted intermittently for around 700 years before the site fell into disuse. The results were published in Frontiers in Conservation Science. “We found that bison ...

Parents of children with medical complexity report major challenges with at-home medical devices

2026-02-10

Parents of children with medical complexity report that they rely on various medical devices for essential care of their kids at home, yet the processes of obtaining and using these devices are inadequate and often pose safety risks, according to a study from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Findings from interviews with parents were published in the journal Pediatrics. “Prior research has linked challenges with home device use to emergency ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

New AI model improves accuracy of food contamination detection

Egalitarianism among hunter-gatherers

AI-Powered R&D Acceleration: Insilico Medicine and CMS announce multiple collaborations in central nervous system and autoimmune diseases

The Lancet: People with obesity at 70% higher risk of serious infection with one in ten infectious disease deaths globally potentially linked to obesity, study suggests