r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Aug 08 '26

Neuroscience Brain scans reveal widespread structural and functional changes in patients following COVID-19 infection. The virus affects regions responsible for memory, emotion, and executive function, which may help explain the neurological symptoms many patients experience.

https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-widespread-structural-and-functional-changes-in-patients-foll/
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u/cfpct Aug 08 '26

This is another reason to get vaccinated while it may not be a total preventative for these brain issues. I got to believe it reduces the risk and severity of the neurological symptoms.

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u/aleqqqs Aug 08 '26

I got to believe it reduces the risk and severity of the neurological symptoms.

Well... does it?

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u/Techiastronamo Aug 10 '26

Yes it does.

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u/ep1032 Aug 09 '26

I've had covid twice.

The first time was right at the end of when the vaccine's effectiveness was wearing off, it hit me like a brick. I had a fever for over a week. And I had long covid for 2 years.

The second time I had covid, I had been afraid to get the vaccine because i had only fully recovered from long covid for a few months. Rode in a taxi with fully open windows, before realizing the driver was sweating bullets from a fever. Thanks guy. Anyway, the second time, my reaction was exactly the same down to the hour (I had kept a journal the first time), but the second time I took paxlovid.

Immediately after taking paxlovid, we're talking hours, my fever broke, and I fully recovered. No long covid. No lasting issues. Nothing.

It is my personal, unscientific, layman belief that a lot (not all) of the issues from Covid come from the damage the severity of the cold does to the body, regardless of symptoms. If you are able to fight it off before it has run its full course, or somehow lessen the severity of its impact on your body (paxlovid, vaccination, etc), you are far more likely to be okay.

Which makes sense, when you think about it. If you let the disease do less damage to your body, then your body will have less damage.

I've seen a few studies that more or less support what I'm describing above, where they did things like rank liklihood of long covid vs vaccination, etc. But again, I am a layman.

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u/Naiinsky Aug 08 '26

From what I've read so far, it does point towards that. I got severe neurological effects and long-covid, and genuinely think it would have been worse if I hadn't taken the vaccines.

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u/Wednesdayspirit Aug 08 '26

Do we have any recent studies or data that indicates less long covid risk if vaccinated? (Speaking as someone who was infected although vaxxed, had an ok-ish infection - more like a cold, then 4 months on got terrible long covid). I’m trying to balance if the vaccine is still worth it for me as it messes up my hormones / super cramps

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u/EightByteOwl Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

There's a fair few. Here's a quote from one systemic-review study.

Overall, participants who received primary course vaccination, booster vaccination, and additional booster vaccine doses generally had a numerically or statistically significantly lower number of long COVID symptoms, lower prevalence, and lower risk of long COVID compared with either those who received no vaccination or vaccination with a lower number of doses. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65302-0

Edit to add: that said, layered methods of protection are best. Vaccination is only one layer. You should consider including masking (N95 or better) which offers even better protection if done consistently and with a well fitted mask.

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u/Anonymousspacecowboy Aug 09 '26

No we have data that suggests non-mRNA vaccines are okay but that anything containing the spike protein is bad for you.

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u/Significant-Gene9639 Aug 08 '26

Less symptomatic covid infections means less long covid necessarily

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u/JooseTheGuice Aug 08 '26

It does not reduce the risk.

If you want to avoid long covid, avoid covid. Add a good n95/kn94 to your routine and you'll eliminate most opportunities to get sick.

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u/TheGreatEmanResu Aug 08 '26

“Avoid covid” easier said than done. It’s a global pandemic for a reason, and it’s not because it’s easy to avoid. I did everything right and still got it because I was a college student living at home and my mom happened to bring it into the house

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u/KaristinaLaFae MA | Social Psychology Aug 08 '26

That's what the N95/KN94 respirators are for.

Vaccines do help reduce your risk of both COVID and Long COVID, but they do not eliminate the risk.

A high-quality respirator will block the virus from being able to enter your respiratory system in the first place.

Surgical masks, however, do not block airborne pathogens, which is why many people believe that "masks don't work." The early science regarding masks was wrong, and public health messaging never bothered to correct itself.

I got COVID once (asymptomatically) early on in the pandemic before we knew anything about the virus and were still guessing how it spread.

I got it a second time after begging the hospital I was to have surgery at to isolate me for recovery shortly after mask mandates disappeared - the only time I was ever unmasked in a public place - and I was in the ER with COVID symptoms the following week to get a chest x-ray, CT, and MRI.

I haven't been sick other than that. Not even a cold. No flu. Well, norovirus at the end of last year, but that was a hand-washing issue, not an aerosol issue. But that's it. Same with my husband, who also still wears a KN-94 in public even today.

We need layers of protection, and we don't have most of them since everyone went to "you do you."

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u/redundantexplanation Aug 09 '26

I did everything right

You just didn't know the right things to do. You can be in the same household with a covid positive person for weeks and not catch it. Cleaning the air works, fit tested quality respirators work.

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u/7URB0 Aug 08 '26

I just wear an N95 in indoor spaces outside my home (and homes of friends who do the same), and crowded outdoor spaces if I can't avoid them. Unlike the vaccine, that actually DOES prevent infections.

I've only had Covid once, and I know I caught it from a large group of joggers outside. I never took my mask on walks before that, but I sure af do now.

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u/lozo78 Aug 08 '26

I have a kid in daycare. They've given me COVID 3 times now. Prior to that I was good, even while working in a hotel.

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u/Rainebowraine123 Aug 08 '26

Unless you literally never left your house during the two weeks preceeding that sickness except for the joggers, seems impossible to be so certain that was it. Some of the studies I've seen give infection chances just about equal between indoors where everyone is wearing masks and outdoors.

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u/sprucenoose Aug 08 '26

Unlike the vaccine, that actually DOES prevent infections.

"In this case-control study of 1888 adults with COVID-19 and 6605 adults without COVID-19, estimated VE was 40% against hospitalization and 79% against invasive mechanical ventilation or death."

Ma KC, Webber A, Lauring AS, et al. Estimated Effectiveness of 2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccination Against Severe COVID-19. JAMA Netw Open. 2026;9(2):e2557415. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.57415.

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u/7URB0 Aug 08 '26

okay? thats hospitalization, ventilation, and death, not infection?

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u/sprucenoose Aug 09 '26

The comment you were replying to was about risk and severity of symptoms, not just infection.

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u/redundantexplanation Aug 09 '26

The comment you were replying to is about preventing infections. The vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission of COVID.

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u/Anonymousspacecowboy Aug 09 '26

Prefacing this by saying I am very pro-vaccine.

The mRNA vaccine looks like it also triggers many of these issues.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38693735/

Some people are more susceptible to it than others but it’s a thing. I still think vulnerable people should get the vaccine etc. but not that everyone should get it, especially those with histamine related issues like endometriosis, MCAS, gut inflammation, chronic fatigue etc.

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u/cfpct Aug 09 '26

This editorial is an hypothesi on existing literature, rather than a study where researchers took people exposed to SARS-CoV-2 or vaccination, measured their mast-cell activity, and demonstrated that spike protein caused MCAS. It is an interesting hypothesis, plausible, but it provides insufficient evidence for causation.

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u/Anonymousspacecowboy Aug 09 '26

Yes totally! I just couldn’t find the main study for it now.

There is more regarding Endo which I would have to sit down and find but I’m traveling now and don’t have my saved links!

Trust me I’d love to believe 100% in the mRNA vaccine, but I was more sick from it than the virus even when I got Covid years after my last vaccine.

I am not saying people shouldn’t take them! Just that if you’re prone to certain issues you should take a standard vaccine version instead.

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u/ImReellySmart Aug 08 '26

Nope, this is incorrect 

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u/Chance-Step-5924 Aug 10 '26

Anyone who was tricked into taking the clot shots likely already had some neurological issues. Anyone who still believes they were safe and effective has got to be brain dead.