Foundations of Biomedical Data Science Seminar Series: Neurocognitive Decline in Young Adults with Mild COVID-19

Excess cognitive dysfunction has been identified in older adult survivors of COVID-19, compared to other respiratory infections. SARS-CoV-2 may thus adversely impact the brain beyond what the cases of acute stroke, etc. suggest. Unrecognized brain effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection may impact current brain functioning and presage future neurodegeneration and overt neurologic dysfunction. However, absent known baseline functioning, detection of subclinical effects will be confounded by normal variation between cases and controls. This talk will present his approach, which leverages detailed pre-pandemic neurocognitive and imaging assessments to characterize subclinical effects on brain structure and function among a large cohort of younger patients who experienced mild or asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Michael L Lipton MD PhD FACR , a neuroradiologist and neuroscientist, is Professor in the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center, Department of Radiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as well as Medical Director of MRI Services at its University Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, both in New York. He divides his professional time between the clinical practice of neuroradiology, teaching and research. Dr. Lipton’s translational research broadly seeks to characterize brain mechanisms linking environmental exposures to brain dysfunction and to understand how these relationships are modified by individual characteristics, such as sex and genes. His research program currently applies MRI to characterize brain microstructure and function in the contexts of repeated head impacts in sports as well as SARS-CoV-2 infection and aging. Dr. Lipton’s work on the impact of “heading” on brain structure and function in amateur soccer players, funded by the Dana Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, has received extensive worldwide scientific and lay-press attention.