Scientists studying the causes of long COVID symptoms are proposing a surprising pathway. Their research weaves together several prominent lines of evidence on what might be driving the condition.
The first clue emerged when researchers scoured the blood of long COVID patients: It was serotonin – specifically, a lack of the neurotransmitter circulating in the body — that grabbed their attention.
The work has made an impression on those studying long COVID, a condition that still has no validated treatment or widely accepted biomarker that doctors can use to diagnose the condition. Levy says they found this reduction in serotonin impairs communication between the vagus nerve and the brain, which then reduces some activity in a region of the brain known as the hippocampus.
"It's not the whole puzzle — and it's not meant to be the whole puzzle — but it's a really important aspect of it," she says. Monje says research on the effects of COVID-19 have revealed neurobiological changes elsewhere in the brain, too."It's broader than just the hippocampus, but certainly the hippocampus has been implicated."
"It's expressed there because it plays a role in absorption of amino acids" like tryptophan, he says.
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