Introduction: Only limited information is still available concerning
cognitive dysfunctions and cortical thickness in individuals who recovered
from mild COVID-19 infections and did not require hospitalization. Our
aim was to evaluate if the highly adaptive potential of cortical thickness
might play a critical role in COVID-19-related cognitive disorder in a
compensatory manner.
Methods: Fifteen individuals with no history of medical, neurological, or
psychiatric disease and with positive COVID-19 test results, and sixteen
healthy age and education-matched healthy controls identified from
the official hospital health system were evaluated in terms of cognitive
scores using Alzheimer Disease’s Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale
(ADAS-Cog) and brain MRI cortical thickness measurements using
FreeSurfer, Version 7.4.0.
Results: An increased cortical thickness in the right entorhinal cortex
(EC) and impaired cognition (increased ADAS score) were observed in
the post-COVID 19 group as compared to the controls confirmed by the
student’s t test (respectively, p=0.006, p<0.001).
The apparent correlation observed between cognitive impairment and
increased entorhinal cortical thickness in our COVID-19 patients might
suggest a continuum pathophysiology between healthy and COVID-19
affected brains that was not evident in previous COVID-19 cases with
cognitive impairment.
Conclusion: Our findings of increased entorhinal cortical thickness,
together with impaired cognitive scores, may indicate a flexible role of
EC thickness in compensatory mechanisms of cognition.
Keywords: cognitive impairment, entorhinal cortical thickness, post-
COVID-19