Sunday, November 29 | 2:10 p.m.- 2:20 p.m. | S4-SSNR02-8 | Room E350
In this Sunday afternoon talk, researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee will share findings from an MRI-based study that shows how long COVID in aging adults is linked to persistent cerebrovascular dysfunction.
The dysfunction manifests as reductions in both cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reactivity, as well as measurable cognitive deficits, according to a team led by presenter and medical student Bria Fiebiger.
Fiebiger and colleagues compared 60 long COVID participants -- averaging 2.7 years post-infection and 60 years of age -- with 61 matched healthy controls. They discovered marked impairments in cerebral perfusion and vascular reserve, deficits most acute within the brain's default mode network and its dorsal attention system, two cognition-related areas susceptible to normal age-related decline.
Fiebiger's group found that long COVID participants exhibited significantly worse performance on standardized neuropsychological tests measuring attention and working memory, an outcome that persisted independent of age, sex, and education. It also observed focal temporal increases in cerebrovascular reactivity in the long COVID cohort, which it suggested reflects "regional compensatory vascular recruitment within affected networks."
The bottom line? Using MRI to track cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reactivity in individuals with long COVID offers a noninvasive way to identify at-risk individuals early and to better understand how COVID-19 interacts with brain vascular aging, according to the researchers.
Attend this talk to learn more.
