Newsweek - USA (2021-02-19)

NEWSWEEK.COM 23

MEDICINE

$1.5 billion to the agency for COVID-19 research, to

be spent at the discretion of director Francis Collins.

Although he has not yet stated whether he intends

to fund brain research, agency officials told News-

week that NIH will likely support large-scale studies

that examine different recovery trajectories. (They

spoke without attribution and declined to give spe-

cifics because the plans are still being hashed out.)

An NIH spokesperson confirmed that NIH will “ex-

pand efforts to determine the scope of the post-acute

COVID-19 symptoms, understand the biological

processes involved and, ultimately, test methods to

prevent and treat such symptoms.”

Neuroscientists, meanwhile, are doing what they

can and focusing their efforts on ways of interven-

ing early in the onset of COVID-19 with treatments

that minimize long-term damage to the brain. Once

patients have lived for months or even years with

the syndrome, treatment is more difficult. “That’s

what we’d like to avoid,” says Dr. Walter Koroshetz,

director of NINDS. “The sooner you can intervene,

the greater effect your intervention is likely to have.

People who are two and three years out and are still

sick, it’s a tougher road to get better.”

A Landscape of Devastation

the connection between chronic neurological

conditions and infectious viruses has long mysti-

fied scientists. In the wake of the 1918 Spanish Flu,

an estimated 1 million people worldwide developed

a mysterious, degenerative neurological syndrome

known as encephalitis lethargica, which caused

to draw attention to the plight of long-haulers and

their cognitive symptoms.

“The realization that there’s a neurological effect

has been really recent,” says Nath. “I’ve been trying

to beat that drum for quite some time. Patients have

been complaining about it for months, but the sci-

entists were not doing anything about it.”

That is changing. Several large-scale initiatives to

study the problem have been announced in recent

weeks. The biggest question is how much money

the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will devote

to them. In December, Congress allocated roughly

HEAD STA RT

Neuroscientists seek

early treatments that

minimize long-term

damage to the brain.

Left: The amygdala, in

red, is an area of interest

to scientists. Below: An

occupational therapist

congratulates a

COVID-1 9 survivor in a

rehab facility that treats

COVID-1 9 victims with

brain injury in Spain.

“The sooner you can intervene,

the greater effect your intervention is likely to have.

People who are two and three years out

and are still sick, it’s a tougher road to get better.”

— dr. walter koroshetz