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Analysis and Health

Does getting even mild covid-19 affect our cognitive skills?

A large UK study suggests people who had been infected with covid-19 experienced some cognitive decline, but the findings are far from definitive

By Michael Le Page

28 February 2024

Even mild covid-19 has been linked to shrinking in parts of the brain

Design Cells/Getty Images

Do most of us have slightly diminished brainpower as a result of getting covid-19? That is the implication of the largest study on this so far, involving more than 100,000 people, but its findings raise more questions than they answer.

A team in the UK invited 800,000 people in the country to take part in research on the cognitive effects of covid-19. Of those, around 113,000 completed a series of online tests at some point between August…

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