Many individuals who lost their sense of smell when infected with COVID-19 show structural and functional brain alterations on imaging, according to new work published in Nature. Now, experts are concerned that the symptoms could be associated with long-term brain alterations. In a group of people who reported anosmia as one of their COVID symptoms, experts recently observed an association between the loss of smell and decreased functional activity during decision-making tasks, reduced cortical thickness and other neural measures.