I am very anti getting covid *and also* this Lancet paper actually does a nice job of noting that the small cognitive deficits that persisted after clinically mild pre-vax-world covid may be too subtle to be noticed by the subjects, but there are other...
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I am very anti getting covid *and also* this Lancet paper actually does a nice job of noting that the small cognitive deficits that persisted after clinically mild pre-vax-world covid may be too subtle to be noticed by the subjects, but there are other confounding factors & mysteries.
IRL many folks are *very* aware of cognitive problems after infection, so this isn't necessarily a case of special sneaky damage that's always subjectively invisible at high severity.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00421-8/fulltext
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@kissane As much as I recognize the dangers of SARS-COV-2 infections, there's so much other stuff going on that could affect cognition. I've never had a positive test, and I notice how much worse I do at multiple things just due to the cumulative stress of the last few years. If I were disabled by COVID and forced to radically alter my life because of it, I'd also probably be doing much worse.
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Mostly I want to say: There's a ton of evidence that covid damages cognition to some degree, even in clinically mild cases. But the specific relationship between subjective experience and objective measures is genuinely complex, so it's good not to over-reduce it.
(Metacognition is wickedly tricky, as anyone with a history of "brain fog" and/or loved ones with cognitive decline can attest. Some conditions are subjectively detectable and some not and severity CAN play a role but doesn't always.)
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(I'm going to mute this thread before the wave of people arrives to tell me I'm on the side of the side of the virus bc I am so guarded and finicky about interpretation.)
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NosirrahSec 🏴☠️replied to Erin Kissane last edited by
@kissane It's frustrating to no end that I feel like I have been hit very hard with cognitive impair, but it's so intermittent and varying in degree to the point it's almost laughable to try and describe aloud to anyone.
"Hey, some days I feel like I can't think in straight lines."
-- Are you sure it's not just your ADHD?
"I can't be sure of anything, because this was always an intermittent issue and now it seems like the extremes are occurring more often."
-- Could it be stress?
"Of course it can be stress. It can be any number of things, but what's been added is a near constant flux of my mental state that I can't even be sure existed before Covid, but feels more extreme and occurring more often since Covid."
-- "Huh. That's weird."
"Cool, thanks."
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@igimenezblb Ugh, do I feel that. The linked paper is a really nice small demo that mild covid infections genuinely do seem to cause some deficits, though the ones they found were small.
For me, this is a point on the side of "reduce the number of total infections to preserve brain (and overall) health" but yeah—we're also experiencing the well-documented effects of stress and social isolation! Human lives are SO messy and our brains go through so much.
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Erin Kissanereplied to NosirrahSec 🏴☠️ last edited by
@NosirrahSec SO FRUSTRATING. It's so frustrating. I feel you.