COVID-19 and the Brain: A Psychological and Resting-state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagin (fMRI) Study of the Whole-brain Functional Connectivity.

The researcher aimed at assessing cognitive impairments and investigating the whole-brain functional connectivity using resting state fMRI in patients with COVID-19 compared with healthy control group. The result showed That COVID-19 group got a lower mean cognitive score and showed a significant reduction in the functional connectivity of the IC14 and IC38 regions of brain compared with controls. Also, the increase of functional connectivity was observed in the COVID-19 group compared with controls at baseline in the default mode network (DMN) and dorsal attention network (DAN) regions of brain. Moreover, Functional connectivity abnormalities in four brain neural circuits associated with cognitive impairment and increased inflammatory markers in patients with COVID-19.