Kamp Siri-Maria, Buntić Nina, Amtmann Julius, Scharpf Amelie, Schönen Alexander, Wagner Leonie, Schulz André
Trier University, Germany.
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
Neurosci Lett. 2023 Sep 25;814:137466. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2023.137466. Epub 2023 Aug 29.
The goal of characterizing long-term psychological and neural consequences of a SARS-CoV-2 infection has recently gained importance. Here, we examined the effect of a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on neural markers of exteroceptive (P300) and interoceptive (heartbeat-evoked potential; HEP) signal processing, as well as on neuropsychological tests of attention, inhibition and episodic memory, in 23 adults with a self-reported history of SARS-CoV-2 infection versus 23 healthy controls. We found that the group with a prior infection showed decreased HEP (but not P300) amplitudes, as well as reduced attention/concentration performance. These results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may damage neural structures of cardiac interoception, thereby potentially contributing to cognitive and psychological long-term deficits. Modulations of interoceptive processing after a SARS-CoV-2 infection are thus a promising target for future research.
表征新冠病毒感染的长期心理和神经后果这一目标最近变得越发重要。在此，我们研究了既往新冠病毒感染对23名自述有新冠病毒感染史的成年人与23名健康对照者的外感受性（P300）和内感受性（心跳诱发电位；HEP）信号处理神经标志物的影响，以及对注意力、抑制和情景记忆的神经心理学测试的影响。我们发现，既往感染组的HEP（而非P300）波幅降低，注意力/专注力表现也有所下降。这些结果表明，新冠病毒可能会损害心脏内感受的神经结构，从而可能导致长期认知和心理缺陷。因此，新冠病毒感染后的内感受性处理调节是未来研究的一个有前景的目标。
