Abstract #3923

Prolonged Cerebral Physiological Dysfunction in Young Adults Post-COVID-19: Insights from a Case-Control MRI Study

Jiachen Liu¹, Bowei Liu¹, Xidong Guo², Rui Shen¹, Shuwan Yu¹, Ning Xu¹, Zixuan Lin³, Zihan Ning^1,4, Huiyu Qiao^1,5, Hualu Han¹, Hanzhang Lu⁶, Jiming Zhu², Wannian Liang², Haiyan Ding¹, and Xihai Zhao¹

¹School of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, ²Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, ⁴King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ⁵School of Biomedical Engineering, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, ⁶Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States

Synopsis

Keywords: Infectious Disease, COVID-19, Blood-brain barrier; Cerebral oxygen metabolism; Cerebral blood supply; Young adults

Motivation: Whether post-COVID-19 young adults suffering from functional brain dysfunctions remains unclear.

Goal(s): To investigate functional brain changes in young adults following SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection using MRI.

Approach: Young adult patients and matched controls were recruited and assessed for blood-brain barrier integrity, oxygen metabolism, and cerebral blood flow. Correlations between the duration since infection and functional metrics were analyzed using polynomial linear and second order regression models, adjusting for age, sex, and BMI. An event study was utilized for visualization.

Results: Post-COVID-19 young adult patients exhibited transient blood-brain barrier dysfunction, hypoxia, along with prolonged impairments in cerebral blood supply and oxygen metabolism.

Impact: These findings offer critical insights into cerebral dysfunction following COVID-19. The persistence of impairments in cerebral blood supply and oxygen metabolism beyond SpO2 recovery confirms long-standing damage to fundamental brain functions and provides key pathological evidence for long-COVID neurological manifestations.

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