Evidence of brain recovery – what a 3-year study shows in post-Covid patients

What has changed can change again!

A team from the University Hospital RWTH Aachen followed 51 people with post-COVID conditions for three years: MRI imaging, cognition, biomarkers. Published in 2025 in Brain Communications.

Initially: measurable changes in the thalamus, basal ganglia, and brainstem. Precisely where wakefulness, motivation, and movement are regulated.

After three years: slow clinical improvement. Less fatigue, better cognition. Parallel to this, structural stabilization, functional reorganization, stronger networking.

And what was missing is just as relevant: no neurodegeneration. No persistent systemic inflammation.

The authors call it "brain recovery".

What the study fails to do: It doesn't explain a cause, doesn't test an intervention, and has no control group. Anyone who presents it as proof of effectiveness is overstating its validity.

What she achieves is nonetheless remarkable, especially considering the language we use in diagnoses and consultations. "Structural change in the brain" is quickly translated as "irreversible." This data does not support that.

Being biologically measurable and being biologically modifiable are not contradictory.

Therefore, I believe the second question is underestimated. It's not just: What has changed? But: What can change again?

Source: Dadsena R. et al. Evidence of clinical and brain recovery in post-COVID-19 condition: a three-year follow-up study. Brain Communications. 2025;7(5).