Grant: Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

"After the initial acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that a proportion of individuals experience persistent symptoms, even after clearing of the original infection. This syndrome, long COVID, is associated with a large array of symptoms, many of which are related to brain health. These include fatigue, ""brain fog"", cognitive difficulties and headaches. A number of studies have recently demonstrated that there are persistent structural deficits associated with long COVID, but much less attention has been given to physiological changes. Physiological deficits, in outcomes such as cerebral blood flow, oxidative metabolism and vascular reserve are likely to be present in long COVID given that the coronavirus that causes COVID can bind to receptors on blood vessels. Importantly, brain physiological deficits are more easily reversible than entrenched structural lesions or atrophy. Therefore, should these physiological deficits be identified, they could serve as biomarkers for lifestyle or pharmaceutical interventions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a versatile tool that can be used to collect data on several physiological outcomes, including cerebral blood flow, vascular reserve and oxidative metabolism. These MRI outcomes were already collected in 15 long COVID patients who experience lingering brain-related symptoms such as fatigue and difficulty concentrating at least three months after the original infection. Data will be collected in an additional 10 patients and matched controls, who have not experienced lingering symptoms after a COVID infection. All data will be analyzed using in-house scripts to assess whether long COVID patients demonstrate cerebral vascular impairments as compared to controls."