Observational studyInfection2025
No substantial neurocognitive impact of COVID-19 across ages and disease severity: a multicenter biomarker study of SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative adult and pediatric patients with acute respiratory tract infections.
Observational study in Infection, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04359914 (Biomarker-guided Assessment of Neurocognitive Impairment in Patients With COVID-19 - a Multicenter Case-control Study), which is not on this map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Biomarker-guided Assessment of Neurocognitive Impairment in Patients With COVID-19 - a Multicenter Case-control Study
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neuropsychiatric Involvement in Hospitalized COVID-19 Is Embedded in Multi-Organ Disease: A Retrospective Five-Axis Record-Derived Phenotype Atlas with Renal-Urinary Prognostic Dominance.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Impact of meningoencephalitis and sepsis on delirium and subsequent neurological impairment in pediatric patients: a prospective proof-of-concept biomarker and EEG study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Evaluation of Cognitive Functions in People Living with HIV Before and After COVID-19 Infection.Viruses · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCompared to intensive care unit patients with SARS-CoV-2 negative acute respiratory tract infections, patients with SARS-CoV-2 are supposed to develop more frequently and more severely neurologic sequelae. Delirium and subsequent neurocognitive deficits (NCD) have implications for patients' morbidity and mortality. However, the extent of brain injury during acute COVID-19 and subsequent NCD still remain largely unexplored. Body-fluid biomarkers may offer valuable insights into the quantification of acute delirium, brain injury and may help to predict subsequent NCD following COVID-19.
methodsIn a multicenter, observational case-control study, conducted across four German University Hospitals, hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with an acute COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 negative controls presenting with acute respiratory tract infections were included. Study procedures comprised the assessment of pre-existing neurocognitive function, daily screening for delirium, neurological examination and blood sampling. Fourteen biomarkers indicative of neuroaxonal, glial, neurovascular injury and inflammation were analyzed. Neurocognitive functions were re-evaluated after three months.
resultsWe enrolled 118 participants (90 adults, 28 children). The incidence of delirium [85 out of 90 patients (94.4%) were assessable for delirium) was comparable between patients with COVID-19 [16 out of 61 patients (26.2%)] and SARS-CoV-2 negative controls [8 out of 24 patients (33.3%); p > 0.05] across adults and children. No differences in outcomes as measured by the modified Rankin Scale, the Short-Blessed Test, the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly, and the pediatrics cerebral performance category scale were observed after three months. Levels of body-fluid biomarkers were generally elevated in both adult and pediatric cohorts, without significant differences between SARS-CoV-2 negative controls and COVID-19. In COVID-19 patients experiencing delirium, levels of GFAP and MMP-9 were significantly higher compared to those without delirium.
conclusionsDelirium and subsequent NCD are not more frequent in COVID-19 as compared to SARS-CoV-2 negative patients with acute respiratory tract infections. Consistently, biomarker levels of brain injury indicated no differences between COVID-19 cases and SARS-CoV-2 negative controls. Our data suggest that delirium in COVID-19 does not distinctly trigger substantial and persistent subsequent NCD compared to patients with other acute respiratory tract infections.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04359914; date of registration 24-APR 2020.
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