Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

, volume 94 , issue 4 , pages jnnp-2022-329683

What is brain fog?

Laura McWhirter ^{1, 2}

Heather Smyth ^{2, 3}

Ingrid Hoeritzauer ^{1, 2}

Anna Couturier ^{2, 4}

J. Stone ^{1, 2}

Alan J. Carson ^{1, 2}

Hide authors affiliations Show authors affiliations: 4 affiliations

Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences

THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH |

Edinburgh Medical School |

⁴

Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation |

Publication type: Journal Article

Publication date: 2022-12-06

BMJ

Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

scimago Q1

wos Q1

SJR: 3.379

CiteScore: 15.9

Impact factor: 7.5

ISSN: 00223050, 1468330X

DOI: 10.1136/jnnp-2022-329683

Copy DOI

PubMed ID: 36600580

Psychiatry and Mental health

Surgery

Neurology (clinical)

Abstract

Background

The term ‘brain fog’ is increasingly used colloquially to describe difficulties in the cognitive realm. But what is brain fog? What sort of experiences do people talk about when they talk about brain fog? And, in turn, what might this tell us about potential underlying pathophysiological mechanisms? This study examined first-person descriptions in order to better understand the phenomenology of brain fog.

Methods

Posts containing ‘brain fog’ were scraped from the social media platform Reddit, using python, over a week in October 2021. We examined descriptions of brain fog, themes of containing subreddits (topic-specific discussion forums), and causal attributions.

Results

1663 posts containing ‘brain fog’ were identified, 717 meeting inclusion criteria. 141 first person phenomenological descriptions depicted forgetfulness (51), difficulty concentrating (43), dissociative phenomena (34), cognitive ‘slowness’ and excessive effort (26), communication difficulties (22), ‘fuzziness’ or pressure (10) and fatigue (9). 50% (363/717) posts were in subreddits concerned with illness and disease: including COVID-19 (87), psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, autoimmune and functional disorders. 134 posts were in subreddits about drug use or discontinuation, and 44 in subreddits about abstention from masturbation. 570 posts included the poster’s causal attribution, the most frequent attribution being long COVID in 60/570 (10%).

Conclusions

‘Brain fog’ is used on Reddit to describe heterogeneous experiences, including of dissociation, fatigue, forgetfulness and excessive cognitive effort, and in association with a range of illnesses, drugs and behaviours. Encouraging detailed description of these experiences will help us better understand pathophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive symptoms in health and disease.

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McWhirter L. et al. What is brain fog? // Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 2022. Vol. 94. No. 4. p. jnnp-2022-329683.

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McWhirter L., Smyth H., Hoeritzauer I., Couturier A., Stone J., Carson A. J. What is brain fog? // Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 2022. Vol. 94. No. 4. p. jnnp-2022-329683.

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