Structural and Neuroradiological Findings in COVID-19 Patients with Post-COVID Neurological Symptoms with Ultrahigh Field 7T MRI

We present preliminary findings of neuroradiological analysis and FreeSurfer-based cortical segmentation analysis which show changes in deep gray matter structures from ultrahigh field MR neuroimaging at 7T in patients with post-COVID neurological symptoms. 8 hippocampal subfields and 4 amygdala subnuclei had significantly increased volume in a cohort of 12 COVID-19 patients with post-COVID neurological symptoms compared to matched healthy controls. These changes may indicate neuroinflammation of the hippocampus and amygdala in COVID-19, which may be related to the neurological symptoms of memory impairment, “brain fog” and anxiety in our COVID patient cohort.