| Title: | Brain Injury After COVID-19 infection Biomarker Study (BIACOB) |
| Lead Institution: | Imperial College London |
| Principal investigator: | Professor Paul Matthews |
Application 76059
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About
Our project will use very small amounts of blood from UK Biobank participants in the COVID re-imaging studies to assess markers of brain injury in those exposed to SARS-CoV-2 relative to those who have not had this exposure. This biomarker data would be linked to other clinical, imaging, lifestyle and exposure data to explore factors that could be responsible for variations in responses of different people. Severe infections may cause dementia, but this has been difficult to test. The observation that brain symptoms with COVID-19 are common, particularly in people with clinically severe presentations, suggests that studying the brains of those exposed to SARS-CoV-2 could test this. Additional data available in UK Biobank also would allow exploration of potential contributions to any brain injury that could be due to SARS-CoV-2 effects on other organs, such as the heart or blood vessels. Finally, as the effects of SARS-CoV-2 exposure may depend on the genes that a person inherits, we will relate results of these analyses to individuals' genetic makeup. Assays for the blood markers will be completed within 6-7 months of the end of the UK Biobank COVID re-imaging (UKBB-CRE) study. We will make our biomarker results available to all researchers. We are experienced in analyses of these data and will be conducting our analyses quickly to accelerate the open data release date. Meeting our goals will allow us to test for clinical unsuspected, "preclinical" brain injury from SARS-CoV-2 and to define factors related to it. The specific plasma biomarkers chosen will allow testing whether COVID accelerates late life dementia/Alzheimer's disease, whether brain pathology related to COVID can explain persistent brain symptoms (e.g., "brain fog") and how brain and body changes after infection might explain other symptoms of Long COVID. Together, this information will have public health impact for defining populations at risk of dementia after SARS-CoV-2 infection and suggest therapeutic approaches.1 Publication
| Pub ID | Title | Author(s) | Year | Journal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14468 | Plasma proteomic evidence for increased β-amyloid pathology after SARS-CoV-2 infection | Eugene P. Duff (+11) | 2025 | Nature Medicine |
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