Multiple Sclerosis As a Model to Investigate SARS-CoV-2 Effect on Brain Atrophy

Overview

Journal CNS Neurosci Ther

Specialties Neurology
Pharmacology

Date 2022 Dec 8

PMID 36479826

Authors

Michael Rebsamen

Christoph Friedli

Piotr Radojewski

Lara Diem

Andrew Chan

Roland Wiest

Anke Salmen

Christian Rummel

Robert Hoepner

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Introduction: Data on structural brain changes after infection with SARS-CoV-2 is sparse. We postulate multiple sclerosis as a model to study the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on brain atrophy due to the unique availability of longitudinal imaging data in this patient group, enabling assessment of intraindividual brain atrophy rates.

Methods: Global and regional cortical gray matter volumes were derived from structural MRIs using FreeSurfer. A linear model was fitted to the measures of the matching pre-SARS-CoV-2 images with age as an explanatory variable. The residuals were used to determine whether the post-SARS-CoV-2 volumes differed significantly from the baseline.

Results: Fourteen RRMS patients with a total of 113 longitudinal magnetic resonance images were retrospectively analyzed. We found no acceleration of brain atrophy after infection with SARS-CoV-2 for global gray matter volume (p = 0.17). However, on the regional level, parahippocampal gyri showed a tendency toward volume reduction (p = 0.0076), suggesting accelerated atrophy during or after infection.

Conclusions: Our results illustrate the opportunity of using longitudinal MRIs from existing MS registries to study brain changes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections. We would like to address the global MS community with a call for action to use the available cohorts, reproduce the proposed analysis, and pool the results.

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