{
  "id": 9167977,
  "title": "Research updates, September 22",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/22/research-updates-september-22",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-09-22T12:16:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Sick Times",
    "slug": "the-sick-times",
    "url": "https://thesicktimes.org/2026/09/22/research-updates-september-22/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A recent study in NeuroImage: Reports suggests that Long COVID patients exhibit reduced blood flow to their brains, which may contribute to their fatigue. The researchers compared 22 Long COVID patients to 19 control participants, who performed a cognitive test while undergoing an MRI to measure blood flow. Long COVID patients reported higher levels of fatigue than controls before and after the test, and they also showed slower reaction times.\n\nIn a separate analysis, Philip Finkelstein argues in The Journal of Medical Humanities that the U.S. is unprepared to handle Long COVID and future mass disabling events. He uses the concept of securitization to explain how public challenges are often treated as existential security threats, despite their insidious nature. Finkelstein contends that modern security strategies are inadequate for addressing Long COVID, as they are short-sighted and poorly suited to threats that operate slowly and erode societies from within. To properly address the security of Long COVID, he argues, the U.S. would need to invest in long-term care, workplace accommodations, and social support. However, such solutions are not seen as geopolitically advantageous.\n\nA preprint shared in Research Square analyzed over 700 Long COVID clinical trials, revealing that most of them focused on symptom treatment rather than addressing the underlying mechanisms of the disease. Only 57 of the 714 trials examined post-exertional malaise (PEM), a common symptom in a subtype of Long COVID, and only eight of those used PEM as a primary endpoint. The researchers emphasized the urgent need for well-powered, mechanism-based, disease-modifying trials with biomarker-driven designs and objective, exertion-based endpoints. They acknowledged that their conservative research strategy may have missed some studies.",
  "summary": "A small study in NeuroImage: Reports has found more evidence of reduced blood flow to the brain of people with Long COVID. The authors concluded that this abnormality was linked with fatigue, after they assessed brain imaging results of 22 people with Long COVID and compared them with 19 controls. The post Research updates, September 22 first appeared on The Sick Times .",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}