NA-MIC Project Weeks

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Long-COVID and the Brain White Matter

Key Investigators

• Zora Kikinis (Mass General Brigham, Boston, USA)

Project Description

About 7% of COVID-19 survivors experience long-lasting symptoms known as long-COVID. There is no proven cure for long-COVID, nor do we know the pathology of the syndrome. Our research project aims to understand how changes in the brain, specifically the white matter, contribute to the symptoms of the neuropsychiatric subtype of long-COVID.

The brain white matter fiber tract of interest to us is the dorsal vagal complex-corticolimbic fiber system (DVC-CLFS), which connects the brainstem and the frontal brain areas (Kikinis et al. 2024).

Objective

Reconstruction of the DVC-CLFS fiber tract in study subjects using 3DSlicer.

Approach and Plan

I will use diffusion and structural MRI, specifically whole-brain tractography and T1 images, from subjects with and without long-COVID to identify the DVC-CLFS fiber tract in its entirety, extending from the frontal lobe to the brainstem.

Progress and Next Steps

1. In the past project weeks, we have established the protocol for delineating the fiber tract from MRI images using 3D Slicer.
2. During this week, I will reconstruct the fiber tract from additional study subjects.

Illustrations

Reconstruction of the DVC-CLFS fiber tract (white) using whole-brain tractography and FreeSurfer-generated parcellations using 3D Slicer tool and its extensions.

Background and References

Investigating the Structural Network Underlying Brain-Immune Interactions Using Combined Histopathology and Neuroimaging: A Critical Review for Its Relevance in Acute and Long COVID-19. Kikinis et al. 2024, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38590789/