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. 2024 Dec 4:15:1412020.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1412020. eCollection 2024.

Structural MRI correlates of cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in Long COVID: a pilot study

Shantanu H Joshi  1   2 , Prabha Siddarth  3 , Helen Lavretsky  3
Affiliations

Structural MRI correlates of cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in Long COVID: a pilot study

Shantanu H Joshi et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Approximately 7% of COVID-19 patients (1.3% children) have exhibited symptoms of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), or Long COVID, and 20% of those present with neuropsychiatric symptoms. While a large number of MRI-based neuroimaging studies in this population have shown cortical atrophy in terms of gray matter volume and cortical thickness in patients, there is a growing body of work showing brain volume enlargements or thickness increases in patients compared to COVID negative controls. To investigate this further, we used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine differences in gray matter thickness for the cortical limbic and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortical regions between patients with Long COVID and healthy controls. Results showed increased cortical thickness in the caudal anterior, isthmus, and the posterior cingulate gyrus as well as the rostral middle frontal gyrus respectively along with higher gray matter volume in the posterior cingulate and the isthmus cingulate in patients with Long COVID. Cortical thickness and gray matter volumes for regions of interest (ROIs) were also associated with the severity measures, clinical dementia rating, and anxiety scores in the Long COVID group. Our findings provide supporting evidence for cortical hypertrophy in Long COVID.

Keywords: brain; cingulate gyrus; cortical thickness; gray matter volume; long COVID; structural MRI.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
T1‐weighted MR images for a healthy control of age 60 years and a participant diagnosed with Long COVID of age 62 years. The red circle denotes white matter hyperintensities.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Left: Cortical thickness differences between the Long COVID (Long-COVID) and the COVID- groups for the left and right caudal anterior cingulate and the right isthmus and posterior cingulate ROIs. Right: Structural associations with clinical measures in the Long-COVID group. The right caudal anterior, isthmus, and the posterior cingulate thickness is associated with illness severity (CIRS-G), while the left insular thickness is associated with anxiety (HAMA).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Top row: Gray matter volume differences between the Long-COVID and the COVID- groups for the left and right posterior cingulate and the right isthmus cingulate ROIs. Bottom row: Structural associations with clinical measures in the Long-COVID group. The left caudal anterior and the right posterior cingulate volume is associated with the clinical dementia rating score (CDR) while the left caudal middle frontal gyrus volume is associated with anxiety (HAMA).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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