Investigation of hippocampal subfield volumes in long COVID and ME/CFS using 7T MRI

Motivation: To study hippocampal atrophy in long COVID and Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS patients). Goal(s): Our goal was to investigate hippocampal atrophy in long COVID and ME/CFS patients. Approach: We used T1-weighted MP2RAGE data from 7T MRI and used FreeSurfer to estimate hippocampal subfield volumes in long COVID and ME/CFS patients. Results: We found that hippocampal subfield volumes were larger in long COVID and ME/CFS patients compared to HC. Impact: Our study showed atypical hippocampal atrophy in long COVID and ME/CFS patients indicating that existing brain research findings in ME/CFS patients may help better understand the neurological dysfunction in long COVID patients.