it s the olfactory part of the brain which is linked to smell that saw the biggest changes after covid. the hope is the brain can recover. what smell training does is it forces you to mindfully take in the smell, allow it to go back into your nose, and then to think about what it is that you re smelling. this study is just the start. it looked at earlier variants of covid. it s unclear whether omicron caused the same changes. the hope is further scans will help us to understand the legacy left by covid i9. rebecca morelle, bbc news. hong kong has reported more than 25,000 new coronavirus infections and 280 deaths in the space of 2a hours, as authorities struggle to contain a growing outbreak. the virus has hit hundreds of the city s nursing homes, and infected many unvaccinated elderly people. hong kong had been successful in controlling the virus, but has recently seen infections
in the parts of the brain related to the sense of smell and memory. and those who had been infected found it harder to perform complex mental tasks. the scientists have been trying to assess what the changes mean. the infected participants also had more difficulties, greater difficulties in performing complex tasks, compared with those who did not get infected. and we can relate that to how much of their brain had shrunk. so, yes, it does have real life consequences. what s not yet clear is whether the changes are permanent or if they can be reversed. it can get scary to hear about the fact that your brain has shrunk. but we need to bear in mind that the brain is really plastic. by that, we mean it can heal itself. and there are signs this may be possible. it smells like eucalyptus now, thankfully. paola lost her sense of smell after catching covid in march 2020. through smell training with the abscent charity, it s starting to get better.