Brazilian study that evaluated patients with moderate or severe covid-19 conditions revealed important connections between persistent inflammation and long-term neuropsychiatric outcomes, such as symptoms of anxiety, depression and cognitive difficulties.
The results were in the magazine Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
The investigation explored the impact of cytokines and chemokines – proteins that control the body’s immune response – on neuropsychiatric symptoms. The study accompanied 108 participants for a period of two years after hospital discharge by Covid-19.
The researchers identified that high levels of eotaxin, an inflammatory marker associated with neurodegeneration, were linked to. The proinflammatory index (which adds all the inflammatory markers analyzed in the blood), in turn, was central to statistical analysis, which tried to understand and represent how the connection between these multiple factors affects the psychiatric and cognitive state of the patient.
Scientists also evaluated the Endothelial Vascular Growth Factor (VEGF), realizing an association with anxiety and pointing it as an important connector in analytical models. VEGF is a kind of stimulating the increase and formation of blood vessels in tissues.
The research has as its main author Felipe Couto, graduating from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo (FM-USP), and, among others, Guilherme Roncete and Sophia Aguiar Monteiro Borges.
Couto conducted the study as a student of Scientific Initiation of the Center for Research and Innovation in Mental Health (CISM), which is supported by FAPESP.
The research has as advisers the psychiatrists Euripedes Constantino Miguel and Rodolfo Furlan Damiano, coordinator and researcher of CISM, respectively.
“The findings highlight the complexity of these interactions and suggest that these biomarkers can serve as diagnostic and prognosis tools for the syndrome,” says Couto.
The study used advanced statistical analyzes, including widespread additive models and psychological network analysis. The data obtained in scientific research reinforce the role of inflammation in the persistence of postcovid neuropsychiatric symptoms, which contributes to an advance in understanding this debilitating condition.
The results open the way for new studies with larger samples and a control group to compare the results.
*With information from CISM
