| Title: |
Association of structural brain changes with cognitive deficits and fatigue in patients with post-COVID-19 condition |
| Authors: |
Schwichtenberg, Katia; Hartung, Tim; Heine, Josephine; Krohn, Stephan; Boesl, Fabian; Rust, Rebekka; Romanello, Amy; Paul, Friedemann; Bellmann-Strobl, Judith; Franke, Christiana; Finke, Carsten |
| Contributors: |
German Research Foundation; Clinical Research Unit KFO 5023 ‘BecauseY’; Heisenberg Program; German Ministry of Education and Research; CONNECT-GENERATE |
| Source: |
Brain Communications ; volume 8, issue 2 ; ISSN 2632-1297 |
| Publisher Information: |
Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| Publication Year: |
2026 |
| Description: |
Cognitive impairment and fatigue are frequent symptoms in patients with post-COVID-19 condition. However, cognitive issues are often only self-reported and not compared to well-matched control groups. Furthermore, structural brain changes, underlying cognitive impairment and fatigue in post-COVID-19 condition are still not fully understood. To assess cognitive deficits, fatigue, neuropsychiatric symptoms and quality of life in patients with post-COVID-19 condition, determine changes in brain volumes, cortical thickness and regional shape complexity and assess correlations of imaging measures with clinical symptoms, 49 patients with post-COVID-19 condition (80% female) with a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection at least 3 months prior to testing and new onset of cognitive complaints and 48 healthy controls matched for sex, age and education level underwent comprehensive neuropsychological testing, MRI-based volumetric analyses, and fractal dimensionality analysis to evaluate structural brain complexity. Neuropsychiatric symptoms and quality of life were assessed using questionnaires. Patients with post-COVID-19 condition exhibited significant deficits of attention, executive functions, phonemic and semantic fluency, verbal learning and episodic and visuospatial memory (all P(corrected) = 0.002– |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: |
English |
| DOI: |
10.1093/braincomms/fcag099 |
| DOI: |
10.1093/braincomms/fcag099/67386344/fcag099.pdf |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcag099; https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/braincomms/fcag099/67386344/fcag099.pdf; https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article-pdf/8/2/fcag099/67386344/fcag099.pdf |
| Rights: |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.FF8F54C9 |
| Database: |
BASE |