据据路透社3月8日报道，英国牛津大学发表在《自然》杂志上的一项研究表明，新冠病毒可能会导致大脑萎缩，患者大脑中控制情绪和记忆区域的灰质可能会因此减少。
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COVID-19 can cause the brain to shrink, reduce grey matter in the regions that control emotion and memory, and damage areas that control the sense of smell, an Oxford University study has found.
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研究人员在当天发表的研究报告中表示:“有强有力的证据表明，感染新冠病毒导致大脑相关的异常。”
"There is strong evidence for brain-related abnormalities in COVID-19," the researchers said in their study.
据报道，这项研究涉及785名研究对象，年龄在51岁-81岁之间，研究人员对他们进行了两次脑部扫描，相隔时间平均为141天。其中有401人在此期间感染了新冠病毒。
The peer-reviewed study, published in the Nature journal, investigated brain changes in 785 participants aged 51–81 whose brains were scanned twice, including 401 people who caught COVID between their two scans. The second scan was done on average 141 days after the first scan.
研究人员对比发现，新冠病毒导致的大脑灰质减少和组织受损程度，可能大于未感染者自然出现的此类情况。在两次扫描间，新冠肺炎患者额外失去了0.2%至2%的大脑灰质，与嗅觉有关的大脑区域组织受损。
研究还发现，一些新冠患者还会出现包括注意力、专注力、信息处理速度下降和记忆力受损等情况。
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Even in mild cases, participants in the research showed "a worsening of executive function" responsible for focus and organising, and on an average brain sizes shrank between 0.2% and 2%.
Studies have found some people who had COVID suffered from "brain fog" or mental cloudiness that included impairment to attention, concentration, speed of information processing and memory.
研究人员表示，这些影响是否可以部分逆转，或者是否会长期存在，还需要进一步调查。
Whether the impact could be partially reversed or if they would persist in the long term needed further investigation.
报道指出，这项研究是在阿尔法变异毒株为英国主要流行毒株时进行的，因此无法体现德尔塔变异毒株对病人脑部的影响。
The study was conducted when the Alpha variant was dominant in Britain and is unlikely to include anyone infected with the Delta variant.
研究人员也没有说明接种新冠疫苗是否会对这些现象产生任何影响，但英国卫生安全局在上个月表示，综合此前的15项研究发现，接种疫苗的人群出现新冠感染后遗症的可能性约为未接种者的一半。
The researchers did not say if vaccination against COVID had any impact on the condition but the UK Health Security Agency said last month that a review of 15 studies found that vaccinated people were about half as likely to develop symptoms of long COVID compared with the unvaccinated.
综合来源：央视财经，路透社，牛津大学网站
