How online brain games are helping Canadian researchers study COVID-19, thinking and memory

Dr. Rick Swartz, stroke neurologist and neuroscientist, speaks to the Toronto Star about an international COVID-19 brain study and how Canadian researchers are using online games to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the brain.

Dr. Swartz, also an associate professor at the University of Toronto, is co-leading the study with Dr. Adrian Owens at Western University.

The study is currently recruiting thousands of participants from all over the world to take part in a survey and then to complete online activities to help researchers find out what might be happening in certain parts of the brain.

“These are games like those you’d play on your smartphone,” Dr. Swartz explains to the Star, adding that the tasks test cognition, “So skills for planning, sequencing, decision-making, remembering.”

Researchers continue to recruit a variety of study participants including individuals who have never been diagnosed with COVID-19, those who have recovered from COVID-19 or continue to have lingering symptoms from the virus.