This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: There is a paucity of data on long-term neuroimaging findings from individuals who have developed the post-coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) condition. Only 2 studies have investigated the correlations between cognitive assessment results and structural MR imaging in this population. This study aimed to elucidate the long-term cognitive outcomes of participants with the post-COVID-19 condition and to correlate these cognitive findings with structural MR imaging data in the post-COVID-19 condition.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cohort of 53 participants with the post-COVID-19 condition underwent 3T brain MR imaging with T1 and FLAIR sequences obtained a median of 1.8 years after Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was used to assess several cognitive domains in the same individuals. Correlations between cognitive domains and whole-brain voxel-based morphometry were performed. Different ROIs from FreeSurfer were used to perform the same correlations with other neuroimaging features.
RESULTS: According to the Frascati criteria, more than one-half of the participants had deficits in the attentional (55%, n = 29) and executive (59%, n = 31) domains, while 40% (n = 21) had impairment in the memory domain. Only 1 participant (1.89%) showed problems in the visuospatial and visuoconstructive domains. We observed that reduced cortical thickness in the left parahippocampal region (t(48) = 2.28, P = .03) and the right caudal-middle-frontal region (t(48) = 2.20, P = .03) was positively correlated with the memory domain.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that cognitive impairment in individuals with the post-COVID-19 condition is associated with long-term alterations in the structure of the brain. These macrostructural changes may provide insight into the nature of cognitive symptoms.
ABBREVIATIONS:
- BMI
- body mass index
- COVID-19
- coronavirus disease 2019
- PCC
- post-COVID-19 condition
- reproa
- Reproducibility Analysis
- SARS-CoV-2
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2
- WAIS
- Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
- WHO
- World Health Organization
Footnotes
This research was funded by grant No. SLT0020/6_14 and in the call for grants corresponding to the year 2021 of the Strategic Plan for Research and Innovation in Health 2016–2020, modality research projects oriented to primary care, with file code SLT002/000055 of the Departament de Salut. Generalitat de Catalunya. This study is also supported, in part, by grants from National Health Institute Carlos III COV20/00660 to J.G.P. and by the CIBER-Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CB 2021), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Unión Europea, Next Generation EU. M. Mataró is supported by ICREA Academia program. M. Mataró acknowledge research funding by a “Ramon y Cajal” contract (RYC2020-028934-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
The funder had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of this work.
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text and PDF of this article at www.ajnr.org.
- © 2024 by American Journal of Neuroradiology