Multimodal neuroimaging in Long-COVID and its correlates with cognition 1.8 years after SARS-CoV-2 infection: a cross-sectional study of the Aliança ProHEpiC-19 Cognitiu

Methods: We conducted a 3T brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional MRI (fMRI) sequences on 53 LC patients 1.8 years after acute COVID-19 onset. We administered neuropsychological tests to evaluate cognitive domains and examined correlations with Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) and resting state.

Results: We included 53 participants with LC (mean age, 48.23 years; 88.7% females). According to the Frascati criteria, more than half of the participants had deficits in the executive (59%) and attentional (55%) domains, while 40% had impairments in the memory domain. Only one participant (1.89%) showed problems in the visuospatial and visuoconstructive domain. We observed that increased radial diffusivity in different white matter tracts was negatively correlated with the memory domain. Our results showed that higher resting state activity in the fronto-parietal network was associated with lower memory performance. Moreover, we detected increased functional connectivity among the bilateral hippocampus, the right hippocampus and the left amygdala, and the right hippocampus and the left middle temporal gyrus. These connectivity patterns were inversely related to memory and did not survive false discovery rate (FDR) correction.

Conclusion: We included 53 participants with LC (mean age, 48.23 years; 88.7% females). According to the Frascati criteria, more than half of the participants had deficits in the executive (59%) and attentional (55%) domains, while 40% had impairments in the memory domain. Only one participant (1.89%) showed problems in the visuospatial and visuoconstructive domain. We observed that increased radial diffusivity in different white matter tracts was negatively correlated with the memory domain. Our results showed that higher resting state activity in the fronto-parietal network was associated with lower memory performance. Moreover, we detected increased functional connectivity among the bilateral hippocampus, the right hippocampus and the left amygdala, and the right hippocampus and the left middle temporal gyrus. These connectivity patterns were inversely related to memory and did not survive false discovery rate (FDR) correction.