{"id":116365,"date":"2026-09-22T00:06:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=116365"},"modified":"2026-09-22T00:06:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:06:55","slug":"long-covid-brain-fog-brain-scans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/health-and-wellness\/long-covid-brain-fog-brain-scans\/","title":{"rendered":"Long COVID Brain Fog Was &#8220;All in Your Head&#8221; &#8211; Just Not the Way People Meant"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>10 Minute, 11 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>If you have long COVID, you may know this moment. You explain the fog, the heavy tiredness, the way a simple list of groceries slips out of your mind. Then you watch the other person&#8217;s face change. A doctor, a boss, sometimes someone who loves you. And you can tell what they are thinking: <em>maybe it&#8217;s stress. Maybe it&#8217;s all in your head.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>A brain imaging study out of Toronto has something to say about that. The researchers looked inside the brains of people with long COVID brain fog and found something missing. And it was missing in the exact places you would expect, given the symptoms.<\/p>\n\n<p>Here is what they found, what it does not prove yet, and why the old line &#8220;it&#8217;s all in your head&#8221; turns out to be true in a way nobody meant.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What the Scans Found in Long COVID Brain Fog<\/h2>\n\n<p>The study came from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. It was published in July 2026 in the journal <em>eBioMedicine<\/em>, with Dr. Jeffrey Meyer as senior author.<\/p>\n\n<p>The team used PET scans, a kind of brain imaging that can track one chemical at a time. They used a tracer that sticks to a protein called VMAT2. That protein sits on the nerve endings of the brain cells that release dopamine. More of the protein usually means more healthy dopamine nerve endings. Less means fewer.<\/p>\n\n<p>They scanned 24 adults with long COVID and 24 healthy people of about the same age. (For some extra checks, they widened the healthy group to 43.)<\/p>\n\n<p>The result was not subtle. In all three brain areas they measured, people with long COVID had clearly lower levels of the marker, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.auntminnie.com\/clinical-news\/molecular-imaging\/article\/15830001\/brain-pet-scans-reveal-neuron-loss-in-long-covid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">about 16% to 20% lower depending on the area<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>The low spots also lined up with the symptoms:<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A deep area tied to drive and reward<\/strong> (the ventral striatum): lower levels went with more apathy and more complaints about thinking.<\/li>\n<li><strong>An area tied to movement<\/strong> (the dorsal putamen): lower levels went with slower finger-tapping on a simple speed test.<\/li>\n<li><strong>An area tied to memory<\/strong> (the dorsal caudate): lower levels went with worse scores on a word-memory test.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>&#8220;Our findings provide compelling evidence that long COVID involves the loss of dopamine-releasing neurons,&#8221; Dr. Meyer said. He also put it this way: &#8220;These results indicate that long COVID is, at least in part, a disorder of the brain&#8217;s dopamine system.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>One of the study&#8217;s advisers, Susan Deuville, speaks from her own experience of the illness. She said the findings show long COVID is &#8220;real and the effects are devastating.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Dopamine Isn&#8217;t Just the &#8220;Feel-Good&#8221; Chemical<\/h2>\n\n<p>This is the part most people miss. Dopamine gets called the pleasure chemical. But it does much more quiet, everyday work than that. It helps you <em>start<\/em> things. It helps you move smoothly. It helps you hold on to what you just heard.<\/p>\n\n<p>So when someone with long COVID says, &#8220;I want to do it, I just can&#8217;t get going,&#8221; that is not a character flaw. It is a pretty good description of what low dopamine signalling can feel like from the inside. The scans point to a real, physical reason why effort feels so heavy.<\/p>\n\n<p>That matters because &#8220;apathy&#8221; sounds like a choice. It sounds like not caring. For many people with long COVID, it is closer to a car with the fuel line pinched.<\/p>\n\n<h2>&#8220;All in Your Head&#8221; &#8211; True, but Not the Way People Meant<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is the detail worth sitting with. This finding did not come from a lab that set out to prove long COVID is &#8220;physical, not mental.&#8221; It came from a centre whose whole job is mental health and addiction. And what they found was a physical change in the brain.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is the problem with the old split between &#8220;real illness&#8221; and &#8220;in your head.&#8221; The brain <em>is<\/em> in your head. It is an organ, like your heart or your lungs. It can be injured. A symptom can be in your head and completely real at the same time.<\/p>\n\n<p>The researchers think they know part of how this happens. Their earlier work had found high inflammation in these same dopamine-rich regions. &#8220;We know that inflammation can injure dopamine neurons,&#8221; Dr. Meyer said. The new study showed the dopamine marker was low in the same places the inflammation had been high.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What This Study Does Not Prove (Yet)<\/h2>\n\n<p>It is worth being honest about the limits, because overpromising is its own kind of unkindness to people who are sick.<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It was small.<\/strong> 24 people with long COVID is a strong start, not the final word. Bigger studies need to repeat it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It shows a link, not a full cause.<\/strong> The idea that inflammation damaged these nerve endings fits the evidence, but this study alone does not prove it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It may not explain every case.<\/strong> Long COVID looks different from person to person. Dr. Meyer&#8217;s own words were &#8220;at least in part.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>There is no new treatment yet.<\/strong> The team plans a clinical trial with Toronto&#8217;s University Health Network. It will test existing medicines that support dopamine, such as dopamine building blocks and drugs that slow its breakdown. Until results come in, nobody should start or stop a medicine because of this study.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Still, for many people the biggest news is not the treatment. It is the picture. A scan you can point to.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Second Wound: Not Being Believed<\/h2>\n\n<p>Being sick is hard. Being sick and not believed is a second injury on top of the first.<\/p>\n\n<p>In 2022, researchers surveyed 334 people with long COVID in the United States. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2667321522001299\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Many described doctors who brushed off their symptoms<\/a>, which led to long searches for a diagnosis and few treatment options. The researchers also noticed something sadder: when a doctor did not take the illness seriously, family and friends often followed their lead.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is how disbelief spreads. It starts in one office and ends up at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n\n<p>If you have been fighting fatigue that no blood test seems to explain, you might also find this helpful: <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/health-and-wellness\/tired-all-the-time-blood-tests-normal\/\">Tired All the Time but Blood Tests Normal? What It Means<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>There is a very old story about this exact second wound. A man loses nearly everything, including his health. His friends come and, to their credit, sit with him in silence for a whole week. Then they start talking. And they become more and more sure his suffering must have a hidden cause, something he did, something he is not admitting. He keeps telling them the truth about his pain. They keep explaining it away.<\/p>\n\n<p>The story is the book of Job, one of the oldest in the Bible. What surprises people is how it ends. God does not side with the friends who had it all figured out. God says they were the ones who got it wrong, and the man who was honest about his pain is the one who is set right. The person telling the truth about their suffering was never the problem.<\/p>\n\n<p>We wrote more about what Job&#8217;s friends got right before they got it wrong in <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/health-and-wellness\/how-to-help-someone-with-depression\/\">How to Help Someone With Depression: Don&#8217;t Wait to Be Asked<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Things You Can Do This Week<\/h2>\n\n<p>None of these cost money, and none of them replace medical care.<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Keep a simple symptom note.<\/strong> A line a day on your phone: energy, fog, sleep, what you did. Patterns written down are harder to wave away than feelings described from memory.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Use the word &#8220;dopamine&#8221; when it helps.<\/strong> If someone thinks your lack of drive is laziness, you can now say there is published brain imaging linking long COVID to lower dopamine markers in the areas that handle motivation, movement and memory.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bring someone with you<\/strong> to an appointment if you can. A second person remembers what the fog makes you forget, and it is harder to dismiss two people.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spend energy like money.<\/strong> Plan the day around the one or two things that matter most, and rest before you crash, not only after.<\/li>\n<li><strong>If you love someone with long COVID,<\/strong> the most useful sentence may be the simplest: &#8220;I believe you.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h2>Questions People Ask About Long COVID Brain Fog<\/h2>\n\n<h3>Is long COVID brain fog real?<\/h3>\n<p>Yes. A 2026 brain imaging study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, published in eBioMedicine, scanned 24 adults with long COVID and 24 healthy adults of similar age. The people with long COVID had about 16% to 20% less of a marker for dopamine nerve endings in three brain areas, and the lower levels matched problems with motivation, movement speed and memory.<\/p>\n\n<h3>What causes brain fog in long COVID?<\/h3>\n<p>The full cause is not settled, but one leading explanation involves the brain&#8217;s dopamine system. Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found reduced markers of dopamine-releasing nerve endings in people with long COVID, in the same brain regions where their earlier research found high inflammation. Inflammation is known to be able to injure dopamine neurons, but the study does not prove that link on its own.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Does long COVID damage the brain?<\/h3>\n<p>Brain imaging suggests it can affect the brain in some people. A PET scan study published in July 2026 found lower levels of a protein called VMAT2, which sits on dopamine nerve endings, in adults with long COVID compared with healthy adults. The senior author described long COVID as, at least in part, a disorder of the brain&#8217;s dopamine system. The study was small, so larger studies are needed.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Is there a treatment for long COVID brain fog?<\/h3>\n<p>There is no proven treatment aimed at the dopamine finding yet. Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and University Health Network in Toronto plan a clinical trial of existing medicines that support dopamine, such as dopamine precursors and drugs that slow dopamine breakdown. Anyone with long COVID should talk to a doctor before changing any medicine.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why do people with long COVID feel dismissed by doctors?<\/h3>\n<p>Long COVID often does not show up on routine blood tests, so symptoms like fatigue and brain fog can be mistaken for stress or low mood. A 2022 survey of 334 people with long COVID in the United States found that many had experienced doctors dismissing their symptoms, which delayed diagnosis and treatment, and that this disbelief often spread to family and friends.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Where This Leaves You<\/h2>\n\n<p>A scan will not fix a hard day. It will not give you back the months, or the plans, or the version of you that could get through an afternoon without a nap.<\/p>\n\n<p>But it does give you something. The heaviness you have been describing has a shape. It shows up on a screen, in the places where drive and memory live. You were not making it up, and you were not weak.<\/p>\n\n<p>And if nobody around you has said it yet, let this be the first place: you are telling the truth about your pain, and that was never the problem.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Discussion Question<\/h2>\n\n<p>Do you think seeing a brain scan like this would change how people treat someone with long COVID, or does belief have to come before the evidence? Share your thoughts in the comments below.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<p><strong>Post 1:<\/strong> Brain scans of people with long COVID found up to 20% fewer dopamine nerve markers, right where motivation and memory live. For everyone who was told it was &#8220;just stress.&#8221; https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/health-and-wellness\/long-covid-brain-fog-brain-scans\/<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Post 2:<\/strong> &#8220;All in your head&#8221; was true all along, just not the way people meant it. The brain is an organ, and a new study shows long COVID can change it. If someone you love is living with this, read this and then tell them you believe them. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/health-and-wellness\/long-covid-brain-fog-brain-scans\/<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Post 3:<\/strong> The most useful thing I learned today: dopamine is not just the pleasure chemical, it is the &#8220;get started&#8221; chemical. 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PET scans found up to 20% fewer dopamine nerve markers in the brain areas that handle drive, movement and memory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5224,3711],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bgodinspired-health-news","category-health-and-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116366,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116365\/revisions\/116366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}