'Pandemic brain': PET/MRI images reveal how COVID's impact is felt by non-infected individuals
New observations made from the PET/MRI brain scans of individuals who have not been infected with COVID-19 prove that no one is immune to the effects of the pandemic.
That’s according to new research published recently in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity that examined the brain imaging of a large cohort of healthy individuals who had never contracted COVID.
“Beyond the staggering number of infections and deaths, the pandemic has caused lifestyle, societal, and other disruptions, impacting the lives of a large swath of the world population in multiple ways,” Marco L. Loggia, with the department of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical school, and co-authors explained. “The scientific and medical communities are urgently calling for studies promoting a better understanding of the effects of the pandemic on brain and mental health.”
Researchers sought to gain a better understanding of the impacts of the pandemic outside of illnesses and deaths that can be directly attributed to COVID infection. To accomplish this, they based their efforts on the PET/MR imaging of two datasets: 57 ‘Pre-Pandemic’ datasets (acquired between 04/2012 and 02/2020) and 15 ‘Pandemic’ datasets (acquired between 08/2020 and 07/2021). The individuals from the ‘pandemic’ cohort each had a confirmed negative test for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. In addition, participants completed a questionnaire pertaining to their mental and physical health during the pandemic.
After the onset of COVID, experts assessed the scans for levels of the 18 kDa translocator protein (TSPO) and myoinositol (mIns), both of which are glial markers that help provide support and protection to the brain’s neurons and can be detected on PET and MR spectroscopy. Those findings were then compared to the participants’ self-assessments of their health.
“We have hypothesized that subjects examined after the onset of the pandemic and the implementation of lockdown/stay-at-home measures rendered necessary to limit its spread would demonstrate increased (neuro)inflammatory markers,” the experts wrote.
After the initial lockdowns and stay-at-home orders were enforced, individuals who were considered healthy displayed elevated levels of both neuroinflammatory markers (TSPO and mIns) compared to the scans of the pre-lockdown participants. Those who reported feeling mood changes and mental and physical fatigue all exhibited increased TSPO signal in the hippocampus, intraparietal sulcus and precuneus. These findings were not as prevalent in those who did not report symptoms.
“This study presents preliminary evidence of pandemic-related neuroinflammation in non-infected participants, providing an example of how broad the impact of the pandemic has been on human health, extending beyond the morbidity directly induced by the virus itself,” the authors suggested.
The authors concluded by noting the importance of further studies directed at examining the long-term implications of pandemic-related stressors and neuroinflammation.
You can view the detailed research on Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
More on medical imaging of COVID:
Cardiac MRI scans offer new insight into COVID vaccine-related myocarditis
Mammograms should not be delayed after COVID vaccine, research shows
Convolutional neural network pipeline has 100% accuracy distinguishing between COVID and pneumonia
Specific chest CT findings linked with increased mortality in COVID patients
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.