Long-term microstructure and cerebral blood flow changes in patients recovered from COVID-19 without neurological manifestations

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rapidly progressed to a global pandemic. Although some patients totally recover from COVID-19 pneumonia, the disease’s long-term effects on the brain still need to be explored.METHODS We recruited 51 patients with 2 subtypes of COVID-19 (19 mild and 32 severe) with no specific neurological manifestations at the acute stage and no obvious lesions on the conventional MRI 3 months after discharge. Changes in gray matter morphometry, cerebral blood flow (CBF), and white matter (WM) microstructure were investigated using MRI. The relationship between brain imaging measurements and inflammation markers was further analyzed.RESULTS Compared with healthy controls, the decrease in cortical thickness/CBF and the changes in WM microstructure were more severe in patients with severe disease than in those with mild disease, especially in the frontal and limbic systems. Furthermore, changes in brain microstructure, CBF, and tract parameters were significantly correlated (P

Source: Journal of Clinical Investigation - April 15, 2021 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Yuanyuan Qin, Jinfeng Wu, Tao Chen, Jia Li, Guiling Zhang, Di Wu, Yiran Zhou, Ning Zheng, Aoling Cai, Qin Ning, Anne Manyande, Fuqiang Xu, Jie Wang, Wenzhen Zhu Source Type: research