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Top headlines
Lead story
During the earliest days of the pandemic, doctors and researchers were focused on understanding how the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus invades and damages the lungs. But reports of fatigue, brain fog and other cognitive concerns quickly drew attention to a much less intuitive outcome from a respiratory virus – that it could leave an indelible mark on the brain.
As the months and years wore on, these harmful effects on the brain – even in cases of mild infection from the virus – came into sharper focus, and the term “long COVID” became an all-too-common part of the pandemic lexicon.
Now, two new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine are adding another layer to an already bleak picture about how COVID-19 can alter brain structure, function and overall mental health, including significant drops in IQ and reduced memory for years following infection.
Physician scientist and long-COVID researcher Ziyad Al-Aly puts these new studies into context and explores the far-reaching implications for individuals, society and the economy.
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Amanda Mascarelli
Senior Health and Medicine Editor
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Research shows that even mild COVID-19 can lead to the equivalent of seven years of brain aging.
Victor Habbick Visions/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Ziyad Al-Aly, Washington University in St. Louis
Two new high-profile studies add to the increasingly worrisome picture of how even mild cases of COVID-19 can have detrimental effects on brain health.
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Politics + Society
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Mark P Jones, Rice University
Texans’ belief in their state’s exceptionalism has helped fuel support for the Republican state government trying to take border security and immigration enforcement into its own hands.
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Al Cross, University of Kentucky
Mitch McConnell, who has announced he will step down from his role as Senate GOP leader, was an uncharismatic Kentucky lawyer who came to rule the Senate and remake the US Supreme Court.
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Claire Wofford, College of Charleston
In a case that will make legal and political history, the US Supreme Court will consider whether Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for his alleged effort to undermine the 2020 election.
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Arts + Culture
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Diane Williams, McDaniel College
Before being pushed aside by the NCAA, the AIAW, which was designed for and by women, governed women’s college athletics.
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Economy + Business
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Keith A. Preble, Miami University; Charmaine N. Willis, Skidmore College
The US has imposed another round of sanctions following the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. But will it work?
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Science + Technology
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Heidi Collins Fantasia, UMass Lowell
IVF is a decades-old procedure that has allowed increasing numbers of prospective parents to have children. Evolving legislation may put it under threat.
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Danielle Williams, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Enthusiasm for the capabilities of artificial intelligence – and claims for the approach of humanlike prowess –has followed a boom-and-bust cycle since the middle of the 20th century.
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Environment + Energy
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Maxwell Boykoff, University of Colorado Boulder; Beth Osnes, University of Colorado Boulder
Jokes can be a healing contagion as they expose hypocrisy, spark laughter and open minds.
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Ethics + Religion
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Natalie Khazaal, Georgia Institute of Technology
How the media talks about suffering on one side compared with the other can often reveal bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict coverage, writes a scholar of media bias and the Arab world.
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Education
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Gay Ivey, University of North Carolina – Greensboro
Amid calls to ban certain books from libraries and schools, research shows that students benefit when they have the ability to choose which materials they want to read.
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Podcast 🎙️
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Gemma Ware, The Conversation
Daryl Van Tongeren explains what it means to be intellectually humble, and why it’s so important right now on The Conversation Weekly podcast.
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