Your always-congested sinuses could herald more road problems, new research from Friday suggests. The small study found evidence of a link between chronic sinus inflammation and altered, potentially harmful brain activity. The findings don’t necessarily prove that the two things are directly related, but they underscore the need for more research.
The sinuses are the hollow spaces around our nasal cavity and are believed to primarily keep the nose moist and protected by mucus. They can occasionally become inflamed for short periods of time from infections, but some people are unlucky enough to develop chronic sinus inflammation or chronic rhinosinusitis.
No one feels their best, of course with a blocked nose, and there, there have been indications in recent years of a link between chronic sinus inflammation and impaired cognitionFor example, studies have shown that patients to carry out worse on tests of their cognitionthan similarly matched controls and their performance improves after starting treatment for their condition. And patients themselves have described a sense of “brain fogIn addition to their other physical symptoms, which may include a stuffy noseion, decreased taste and odor, and facial pain or discomfort.
This new study, published Friday in JAMA Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, appears to be one of the first to attempt to search for the physical underpinnings of this link. The researchers investigated data from the Human Connectome Project, a USA. government-sponsored study of the human brain. The project is an attempt to map and understand the brain’s circuitry and how these connections actually help the body function. It is largely based on neuroimaging data collected from more than 1,000 healthy and young adult volunteers, who have also undergone a series of gearsnitive tests.
In this project, the researchers looked at a group of 22 people who appeared to have chronic sinus inflammation and compared them to a similar group of people without inflammation. Compared to the control group, the people with sinus inflammation were found to have reduced functional connectivity in areas of the brain that are key to cognition: the front-parietal network, which helps us to stay focused and solve problems, and the salience network, which helps us distinguish between important stimuli and plays a role in our ability to communicate and other social behavior. They also found increased connectivity in the default mode network, which is most active when we are resting and not focused on a particular task, such as while daydreaming.
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Importantly, the people with chronic sinus inflammation did not perform worse on their cognitive tests on average than the control group. But the findings do suggest that there is something going on in their brains that is noticeably different from those without inflammation, and in ways that may explain the symptoms of brain fog that patients may experience. Also, because the people in this study were young, it’s also possible that more noticeable changes in their cognition related to inflammation just haven’t surfaced yet – changes that could occur if their inflammation were left untreated.
Still, the authors are cautious to frame their research as a proof-of-concept, an attempt to show that this relationship needs further study. Not only can this further research confirm that sinus inflammation can harm our brains, but it also opens up opportunities for more treatments for the common condition. Chronic sinus inflammation is believed to affect as many people as one in 10 Americans. T.although there are treatments such as antibiotics or surgery, it recurs frequently and can take years for patients to find lasting relief.
“The next step would be to study people who are clinically diagnosed with chronic sinusitis. It may include scanning patients’ brains, then giving a typical treatment for sinus disease with medication or surgery, and then rescanning to see if their brain activity had changed. Or we could look for inflammatory molecules or markers in patients’ bloodstreams, ”said lead author Arie Jafari, a surgeon and assistant professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine, in a statement. statement from the university.
For now, the team hopes that their findings will at least make doctors more aware that this chronic condition may affect their patients more deeply. ways.
“Our concern should not be limited to alleviating the most overt physical symptoms, but to the entire burden of patients’ illness,” said Jafari.