Joshi Shantanu H, Siddarth Prabha, Lavretsky Helen
Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Front Psychiatry. 2024 Dec 4;15:1412020. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1412020. eCollection 2024.
Approximately 7% of COVID-19 patients (1.3% children) have exhibited symptoms of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), or Long COVID, and 20% of those present with neuropsychiatric symptoms. While a large number of MRI-based neuroimaging studies in this population have shown cortical atrophy in terms of gray matter volume and cortical thickness in patients, there is a growing body of work showing brain volume enlargements or thickness increases in patients compared to COVID negative controls. To investigate this further, we used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine differences in gray matter thickness for the cortical limbic and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortical regions between patients with Long COVID and healthy controls. Results showed increased cortical thickness in the caudal anterior, isthmus, and the posterior cingulate gyrus as well as the rostral middle frontal gyrus respectively along with higher gray matter volume in the posterior cingulate and the isthmus cingulate in patients with Long COVID. Cortical thickness and gray matter volumes for regions of interest (ROIs) were also associated with the severity measures, clinical dementia rating, and anxiety scores in the Long COVID group. Our findings provide supporting evidence for cortical hypertrophy in Long COVID.
约7%的新冠患者（1.3%为儿童）出现了新冠病毒感染后急性后遗症（PASC）症状，即长期新冠症状，其中20%伴有神经精神症状。虽然针对这一群体的大量基于磁共振成像（MRI）的神经影像学研究表明，患者的灰质体积和皮质厚度方面存在皮质萎缩，但越来越多的研究表明，与新冠阴性对照组相比，患者的脑容量增大或厚度增加。为进一步研究这一问题，我们使用结构磁共振成像（MRI）来检查长期新冠患者与健康对照组在皮质边缘和背外侧前额叶皮质区域的灰质厚度差异。结果显示，长期新冠患者的尾侧前部、峡部、后扣带回以及额中回前部的皮质厚度增加，后扣带回和峡部扣带回的灰质体积也更大。长期新冠组中，感兴趣区域（ROI）的皮质厚度和灰质体积还与严重程度指标、临床痴呆评定量表得分以及焦虑评分相关。我们的研究结果为长期新冠患者的皮质肥大提供了支持性证据。
