Could the cerebral involvement of COVID-19 disease be related to microstructural changes that are not reflected in conventional MRI images?

Abstract

In patients with COVID-19, neurodegeneration may develop before clinical symptoms appear. Diffusion-weighted (DW) MRI is an important technique for analyzing microstructural changes such as gliosis. In this study, a quantitative evaluation of microstructural changes in the brain with apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values in patients presenting with a headache after the COVID-19 disease was analyzed and compared. DW MR images of patients of 20 COVID-19 patients (13 females, 7 males) who required imaging due to headache; 20 controls (16 females, 4 males) were retrospectively reevaluated. ADC measurements were taken from 16 regions of the brain, including right and left symmetrical in patients with COVID-19 infections and control groups. All regions of interest (ROIs) were taken from the hypothalamus, parahippocampus, thalamus, corpus striatum, cingulate gyrus, occipital gyrus, dentate nucleus, and medulla oblongata posterior. ADC values in the dentate nucleus right (784.6 ± 75.7 vs. 717.25 ± 50.75), dentate nucleus left (768.05 ± 69.76 vs. 711.40 ± 52.99), right thalamus (731.15 ± 38.14 vs. 701.60 ± 43.65), left thalamus (744.05 ± 39.00 vs. 702.85 ± 28.88), right parahippocampus (789.10 ± 56.35 vs. 754.75 ± 33.78), right corpus striatum (710.00 ± 39.81 vs. 681.55 ± 39.84) were significantly higher than those in the control group. No significant changes were observed in other areas. A significant increase in ADC values at many levels in the brain in patients with COVID-19 disease and headache was observed. Thus, this study indicates that cerebral involvement in COVID-19 disease may be related to microstructural changes that are not reflected in conventional MRI images.