Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Brain Metabolism

First published: October 12, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25673

Commentary

This study aimed to assess the impact of a 55-day French national blockade on brain metabolism in patients with neurological disorders.

Whole brain voxel-based PET analysis was used to correlate 18. F-FDG metabolism up to days after March 17, 2020 (95 patients; mean age: 54.3 years ± 15.7; 59 men), the same period in 2019 before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak (212 patients) and comparison patients; mean age: 59. .5 years ± 15.8; 114 males), until the first 55 days of restriction lifting (188 patients; mean age: 57.5 years ± 16.5; 93 males).

We found that the lockdown period was negatively correlated with sensory-motor cortex metabolism, had a predominant effect on younger patients involving the left predominant pyramidal tract and left amygdala, and was only partially reversible after 55 days of unrestraint. Weak overlap was found in the pattern of hypometabolism reported in the longer COVID (<9%), which may be related to limitations in physical activity, poor physical condition, and social isolation, which may lead to dysfunction of sensory-motor and emotional brain networks.

More notably, this metabolic pattern appears to be different from that reported in the longer COVID. It is stated that further longitudinal studies with longer follow-up are needed to evaluate the cognitive, mental health clinical outcomes and relationships to the functional inactivation hypothesis and to extend these findings to healthy subjects in the context of blockade.