Neurobiological activity of the auditory pathway and memory: a comparative study in individuals infected with SARS-Cov-2.

Only 32 people took part, all from one teaching clinic, and the power calculation done after the fact gives about 71% for a large effect, so small differences here are easy to miss or to over-read. Everyone was young, hearing-normal and highly educated, and people with tinnitus or hearing loss were excluded. Nothing here speaks to older adults, to people with hearing loss, or to those whose COVID-19 was more severe. The paper's own group counts do not add up: the group described as 15 people is listed as containing 12 women and five men, and the 53% / 47% split fits 17 and 15 rather than 15 and 17. Memory was measured once, about six months after infection, and only the memory subtest of NEUPSILIN was used. No behavioural test of central auditory processing was carried out, which the authors name as a limitation. The P3 comparison rests on fewer ears than the other measures, because 6 of the 30 post-COVID ears produced no P3 at all.

The authors declare no financial support and nothing to declare. No sponsor is reported as having designed the study or written it.

Do not read this as proof that COVID-19 damages memory in young adults. The only memory measure that reached significance was short-term visual memory, where every control scored the maximum 3.0 and the post-COVID group averaged 2.8; the verbal memory difference the conclusion highlights was p = 0.063 and not statistically significant. Each person was tested once, the groups were small, and the design cannot show that infection caused these differences.