During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was held in suspense by the virus's acute threat to humankind. After the crisis, we now recognize that COVID-19 can have long-lasting effects and realize we neglected its impact on cognition. Long-lasting cognitive impairments manifest in the post-COVID syndrome, which occurs in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, usually 3 months from the onset, with symptoms lasting at least 2 months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis. Fatigue and cognitive deficits are among the most common and debilitating symptoms of the post-COVID syndrome. Cognitive impairments such as attention deficits, memory loss, and impaired executive functioning negatively impact quality of life and normal functioning in individuals suffering from post-COVID syndrome. Society is only starting to recognize and comprehend the post-COVID syndrome, but its underlying causes and prognosis remain uncertain. With the COVISION project, we aim to expand our knowledge of this elusive clinical picture. Using data from an open repository, we will perform prognostic modeling to model the course of neurocognitive symptoms after COVID-19 and create a prognosis based on markers from different disciplines, such as medicine, psychology, and sociology. Furthermore, we aim to develop a web-based application that captures post-COVID-19 symptoms, social determinants, and impacts on daily life. This will help us gain a better understanding of the neuropsychological profile of patients suffering from post-COVID syndrome and enable us to track and classify the fluctuation of their symptoms over time. Therefore, we can contribute to this topic of high societal interest by investigating long-term development and potential fluctuations of neurocognitive symptoms and identifying multidisciplinary factors related to neurocognitive impairments of the Post-COVID syndrome.

Click here for more information on the COVISION project.

 Contact: Jella Voelter 

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a stage between normal aging-related cognitive decline and dementia, in which several cognitive domains are already impaired, but patients are still able to independently conduct activities of daily life. Thus, the identification of MCI patients can play an important role in the early intervention, prevention, and proper treatment.

MCI can be categorized according to the diagnostic criteria further in patients with non-amnestic MCI (non-aMCI) who are impaired in attention, executive functioning, and language but not memory; and patients with amnestic MCI (a-MCI), who show impairments in memory with or without cognitive deficits in attention, executive functioning, and language. Furthermore, the sizes of the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex and the amygdala are decreased in aMCI relative to naMCI and controls.

Emotion recognition impairments are well documented in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, but it is less understood whether they are also present in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and hence purpose of this study will be to investigate emotion recognition and processing in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Although research in this area is at its infancy, there is some evidence that Emotion recognition in MCI is compromised when compared to normal aging and there is at least some evidence suggesting that negative emotions are more compromised.

Current findings of impaired emotion recognition in MCI highlight the need for early intervention in order to improve the ability of patients to decode emotional cues.

To summarize, in our planned study we aim to investigate the emotion recognition abilities of patients with aMCI and naMCI using a dynamic emotion recognition paradigm applied during an MRI and assess the structural and functional outcomes. We will further try associating the effects of care-giver burden on the emotion recognition abilities and social dysfunction of the different MCI groups.

Contact: Rachana Mahadevan

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) is a condition in which individuals, mostly people aged >60 years, report cognitive impairment and are concerned about a progression of decline – even though the impairment is not yet detectable by neuropsychological testing. Literature shows that individuals with SCD are at a higher risk of suffering from dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in the future. In addition, SCD is associated with a decreased quality of life and stress: SCD is perceived as a stressor and individuals with increased stress levels are more likely to report SCD. Especially due to the increasing proportion of elderly people, it is important to understand SCD and relating factors such as stress levels to be able to develop effective intervention and prevention measures. So far, there is no questionnaire for the assessment of possible SCD symptom fluctuations and possible influencing factors in the everyday life of individuals and for tracking SCD over days or weeks. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire for the ambulatory assessment of SCD by conducting focus group discussion with people affected by SCD and a pilot testing of the designed ambulatory assessment questionnaire. The results and the developed questionnaire provide the basis for further longitudinal studies for ambulatory SCD measurements over several weeks to investigate SCD symptoms and symptom fluctuations in the everyday life of people as well as the possible influence of affect, stress and the situation a person is currently in.

Contact: Franziska Kiene

We do not remember every bit of information that we encounter. What information we do remember depends on a lot of different things, including what we are doing immediately after encountering the information. If we do not engage in complex activities and do not encounter additional relevant information we are more likely to remember the previously encountered information. One possible explanation for this is that whenever we experience new information we store it as a memory trace; this memory trace is initially relatively weak and confined to limited temporary storage locations. In a process called consolidation this memory trace is strengthened and moved to unlimited permanent storage locations. Engaging in difficult tasks and being presented with new information can disrupt this consolidation process and lead to us not remembering the previously encountered information. Patients with memory impairments (which e.g., can be caused by a stroke) seem to be very vulnerable to this disruption of consolidation.

By investigating electrophysiological brain activity during consolidation in different conditions that are more or less likely to cause disruptions, we aim to better understand what is happening in the brain when memories are successfully consolidated.

Once we have a better understanding of the electrophysiological processes underlying memory consolidation our next goal is to influence these processes using neuromodulation to improve memory performance.

Achieving this, would substantially further our understanding of human memory in general but more importantly would provide a novel approach in improving memory performance in memory impaired patients, who have little to no existing effective treatment options.

Contact: Wolf Pink

As drinking alcohol to any extant can lead to undesirable mental and physical consequences, public health interventions which quantifiably reduce its consumption and thereby its detrimental effects to health and resulting economic burden are necessary. While many strategies exist - ranging from indirect interventions via pricing, taxation or availability policies, mass media campaigns and regulations on alcohol marketing, to direct interventions aimed at individuals - few studies have systematically summarized the literature on social equity in the impact of these campaigns, and fewer still have provided a holistic view of equity impact beyond effectiveness or efficacy. Hence, research is needed to identify which interventions best minimize overall levels of alcohol consumption across entire populations, while optimizing equity across different socioeconomic positions (SEPs). To gain a better understanding of when and where inequalities relating to SEP may arise, we are working on a DFG-funded systematic review in collaboration with Cochrane examining socio-economic equity among interventions geared to reduce alcohol consumption among the general public. The results of this review are essential for facilitating the development of fair, equitable policies and measures to reduce total alcohol consumption and, consequently, related morbidity and mortality in the population as a whole.

Contact: Jennifer Eidswick

Because childhood and adolescence are momentous phases of physical and neurobiological growth, as well as periods of heightened emotional, psychological and social vulnerability, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can interfere significantly with critical developmental processes, potentially resulting in poor medical and/or psychological outcomes which can persist throughout the individual’s lifetime. These cascading, long-lasting effects are thought to be rooted in an altered physiological stress response. ACEs trigger an acute stress reaction, which challenges or potentially overwhelms a child’s adaptive capacity, increasing their vulnerablity to future stress exposure in the face of insufficient or depleted coping resources. Thus, repeated exposure to ACEs increases sensitization to stressors while simultaneously decreasing tolerance to further stressful events, ultimately increasing the psychological burden and, thereby, exacerbating the physiological dysregulation of the stress response. In children and adolescents, impaired stress regulation may drive maladaptive emotional or behavioral response patterns. Studies have consistently demonstrated an increasing dose-response relationship between the number of ACEs experienced and both the prevalence and risk of psychopathological (internalizing and/or externalizing) symptoms (PPS).

However, while ACEs are an established risk factor for PPS, not everyone responds negatively to childhood adversity; most do not report struggling with their emotional or behavioral health. Furthermore, type of hardship experienced alone does not determine a child’s response to the stressor. Demographic and lifestyle factors, such as socioeconomic standing (SES), as well as access to and acceptance of health-promoting/stress-regulating coping behaviors, such as regular physical activity (PA) and adequate sleep, influence psychological wellbeing both cumulatively and interactively together with ACEs.

Established in 2018, the multisite longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study performs comprehensive sets of physical, cognitive, social, emotional, environmental, behavioral, and academic assessments annually.  It is the largest, long-term study on brain development and child health in the United states and provides unique data resource as they follow an open science model and release curated, anonymized data every year. Owing to its large size and collection of objectively measured, real-time fitness and sleep metrics, the ABCD study offers a novel opportunity to observe the effects of PA and sleep habits on psychopathology outcomes within an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse population with a significant history of ACEs. The current study hopes to expand the body of knowledge regarding modifiable resilience factors, such as PA and sleep, in the context of ACE score, domain, socioeconomic standing, and rates of PPS.

Contact: Jennifer Eidswick