What This Study Is About
This study describes a rare case where a person lost their "mind's eye"—the ability to create mental pictures—after recovering from a mild case of COVID-19.
How They Studied It
Researchers followed the medical journey of a 59-year-old woman who reported a sudden change in her thinking. To understand what was happening, doctors performed a clinical interview, reviewed her COVID-19 test results, and used an MRI scan to look at her brain structure. They specifically looked for "acquired aphantasia," which is when someone who previously had a normal imagination suddenly loses the ability to visualize.
What They Found
Two months after having a mild case of COVID-19, the patient realized she could no longer picture her house or family members in her mind. She also stopped seeing images in her dreams. While her initial infection only involved flu-like symptoms and headaches, her MRI scan showed small changes in the brain’s "white matter" (the cables that link different brain regions) and signs of small vessel disease. Even after her headaches were treated with medication, her aphantasia remained, though she eventually reported very rare, brief "flashes" of images when closing her eyes.
What This Might Mean
This suggests that aphantasia is not always something people are born with; it can be "acquired" later in life due to medical conditions or brain changes. It also indicates that COVID-19 may affect the nervous system in complex ways, even in patients who do not require a hospital stay. Because this study focuses on only one person, more research is needed to understand how often this happens and whether the "mind's eye" can eventually recover.
One Interesting Detail
Before this happened, the patient had a normal ability to visualize; the loss was so complete that she could no longer even "see" the faces of her own family members in her mind.