MRI findings linked to cognitive issues in patients with long COVID 2 years post-infection
For some, COVID-19 leads to long-lasting changes in brain structure and function, potentially causing long-term issues with cognition.
With the acute effects of COVID now well understood, researchers have been focusing their studies into the virus’ long-term impact on health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that just under 7% of adults in the United States continue to struggle with symptoms of long COVID, such as fatigue, brain fog, intermittent dizziness, headaches and respiratory issues, just to name a few.
A new imaging study focuses on lingering cognitive impairments owed to COVID, highlighting associations with alterations in white matter tracts and memory impairment . The findings were published this week in Frontiers in Neurology.
“The cognitive consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection have been widely reported, but the brain mechanisms underlying these impairments are not well understood,” Rosalia Dacosta-Aguayo, a researcher at the University of Barcelona, and co-authors explained. "A comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation of recovered COVID-19 patients who have subjective cognitive complaints could shed light on the cognitive domains affected by the infection. Attention, memory and executive functions are the most affected cognitive domains in these patients.”
For this latest research, experts used two types of MR imaging—diffusion tensor and functional sequences—to assess the structural and functional integrity of the brains of 53 patients diagnosed with long COVID. The exams took place approximately 1.8 years after the participants’ initial infection.
The group observed a negative correlation between increased radial diffusivity in different white matter tracts and the memory domain. Imaging also showed associations with higher resting state activity in the fronto-parietal network and issues with memory.
Connectivity patterns also varied in patients who reported memory problems. MRIs showed heightened functional connectivity between the bilateral hippocampus, the right hippocampus and the left amygdala, and the right hippocampus and the left middle temporal gyrus.
The researchers note that their findings align with those from other studies that utilized neuroimaging to determine associations between long COVID symptoms and altered brain structure and connectivity. Although their findings provide added insight into some of the cognitive deficits experienced by long COVID patients, more long-term analyses are needed to determine whether issues with cognition improve over time.
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.