Publication date: Sep 14, 2025
COVID-19 has increased the likelihood of cognitive impairment in patients with post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). There is a lack of direct evidence regarding the working memory performance of mild patients during the recovery period. This study employed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to construct a mixed effects model for PASC patients performing the N-back task, assessing brain activation levels and brain connectivity. PASC patients exhibited abnormally low activation in the parietal lobe (β = -0. 21) and abnormally high activation in the occipital lobe (β = 0. 40). There was a significant reduction in brain connectivity within the frontal-parietal and frontal-occipital networks. These findings suggest that PASC patients experience impaired fronto-parietal network connectivity, rely more on the visual cortex to compensate for executive function deficits, and use this as a compensatory mechanism to reduce overall cerebral blood oxygenation. This study provides evidence of altered brain activation patterns in PASC patients during the recovery period due to cognitive impairment.
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Biophotonics | brain activation |
| Blood | brain connectivity |
| Covid | COVID‐19 |
| Low | working memory |
| Spectroscopy |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
| disease | MESH | cognitive impairment |
| disease | IDO | blood |