Our goal is to develop, using neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and immunological assays, biobehavioral signatures to assist with the prediction and diagnosis of COVID-19 psychiatric outcomes as well as the tailoring of treatment. To the best of our knowledge, this would be the first systematic study of the long-term neurologic and neuropsychiatric impact of COVID-19. Our brain imaging biotypes represent an innovation that we leverage in the new study of the impact of COVID-19. These biotypes have been shown to provide biomarkers for assessing the impact of pharmacotherapeutic interventions in neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as the impact on mechanistic targets engaged by these interventions.  Thus, in coordination with the PIs from the IRIS cohort providing immunological and physical diagnostic data, our previous findings will provide the foundation for exploring important tools to assess behavioral and neurologic dysfunction related to COVID-19 and, in future studies, target this dysfunction with selective treatments.​

 

We seek to address the following four specific aims:

 

Aim 1: Characterize the severity and progression of psychiatric symptoms in patients from the IRIS cohort at 3, 6, and 12 months post-COVID19 diagnosis compared to healthy reference norms.

 

Aim 2: Characterize the severity and progression of impairments in neurocognitive functions, focusing on those that are characteristic of ‘brain fog’ relative to those that are not.

 

Aim 3: Identify profiles of neural circuit dysfunction (“biotypes”) that underlie the neurocognitive and neuropsychological impairments falling within the classification of “brain fog.”

 

Aim 4: Elucidate the extent to which the symptom-neuropsychological-biotype profiles elucidated under Aims 1, 2, and 3 are associated with immunophenotyping profiles generated by our ID collaborators.