Your Brain Makes Antibodies Against Itself After COVID. Here Is What a New Study Found.

Published 18 September 2026. What 703 post-COVID patients taught researchers about brain-binding autoantibodies, the NMDA receptor and why the picture is more complicated than headlines suggest.

An exciting new paper published just two weeks ago in Brain, Behavior and Immunity: Health asked a question that matters deeply to anyone navigating Long COVID: does the immune system produce antibodies that target the brain after SARS-CoV-2 infection and, if so, does that explain why some people develop persistent symptoms while others fully recover?

The answer, as is so often the case in this field, is partial. The study found something real. It also found something unexpected. Both findings are worth understanding.