Cognitive issues such as degraded attention and memory loss are among the “long symptoms” of COVID-19 that may be experienced about six to nine months after infection, says the head of the Department of Experimental Psychology in the University of Oxford.
In the study collated by Britain’s Oxford University, a group of recovered COVID-19 patients were asked to complete exercises that were meant to test their cognitive and memory abilities.
The long run of the data-collection garnered results of significantly degraded recalling of personal experiences—episodic memory, conscious recollection of previous experiences with their corresponding time, place, associated emotions, etc.—seemingly showing the relation of the hippocampus being affected by the virus.
“Our findings reveal that people can experience some chronic cognitive consequences for months,” said Dr. Sijia Zhao of the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.
On the other hand, Stephen Burgess of the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge declared the small group of people, not randomized, who were involved in the said study.
“However, despite this, differences between the COVID and non-COVID groups in terms of several specific measures of cognitive ability looked at in this study were striking,” he said.
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