Connectivity Changes associated with the Duration of Long Covid
Poster No:
166
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Leighton Barnden1, Kiran Thapaliya2, Maira Inderyas2, Natalie Eaton-Fitch2
Institutions:
1Griffith University, Southport, Queensland, 2NCNED, Griffith University, Southport, QLD
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Symptoms following COVID‐19 infection persist in 14% of subjects and may be associated with progressive impairment.
Methods:
Functional MRI (BOLD) volume series were acquired for 19 long COVID (LCov) and 16 healthy control (HC) subjects with the high signal-to-noise of a 7T scanner. We subjected the whole dataset to Independent Component Analysis (ICA) of brain connectivity, a sensitive and comprehensive analysis technique.
Results:
ICA isolated 15 components, each with a distinct time signature and spatial extent. Spatially, most components corresponded to hubs of the brain's intrinsic networks. Here, the duration of disease (0.14 – 2.56 years) of the 19 LCov subjects was regressed against the BOLD activity of each ICA component to identify brain regions with correlated activity. For four components significant correlations, both positive and negative, were detected. Strong correlations were seen for components representing Visual, Sensorimotor and Default Mode (DMN) networks and a combined DMN-Salience-Executive network. All four exhibited positive correlations with LCov duration while the Visual network also showed negative correlations with LCov duration. The Visual network negative correlations were strongest to frontal regions, while positive correlations of all four networks mostly involved occipital regions.
Conclusions:
The negative correlations constitute evidence for the progressive impairment of connectivity associated with damage inflicted by the Sars2 COVID19 virus while the positive correlations suggest progressive compensatory connectivity.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodegenerative/ Late Life (eg. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s) 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
fMRI Connectivity and Network Modeling 2
Keywords:
Cognition
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Infections
Neurological
Other - Long COVID, Stroop interference, ICA, inter-network, cognitive fatigue,
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Was this research conducted in the United States?
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
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Provide references using APA citation style.
2. Soriano JB, Murthy S, Marshall JC, Relan P, Diaz JV. A clinical case definition of post-COVID-19 condition by a Delphi consensus. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022 Apr;22(4):e102–7.
3. Menon V. Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: a unifying triple network model. Trends Cogn Sci. 2011 Oct;15(10):483–506.
4. Menon V, Uddin LQ. Saliency, switching, attention and control: a network model of insula function. Brain Struct Funct. 2010 Jun;214(5–6):655–67.
5. Martínez-Mármol R, Giordano-Santini R, Kaulich E, Cho AN, Przybyla M, Riyadh MA, et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection and viral fusogens cause neuronal and glial fusion that compromises neuronal activity. Science Advances. 2023 Jun 7;9(23):eadg2248.