Executive Functioning and Sleep Fragmentation in COVID-19 Patients

Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA

Status

Completed

Conditions

COVID-19

Healthy Volunteers

Treatments

Other: No intervention

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT05764096

2439 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project aims to investigate executive functioning abilities (primary outcome) and quality of sleep (secondary outcome) in patients with COVID-19 (while distinguishing between those with and without sleep fragmentation), compared with an age- and education matched control group of healthy individuals who did not experience contagion. Prefrontal electrical activity will be recorded with EEG in patients, and related to sleep and cognitive-executive metrics.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

is executive functioning impaired in COVID-19 patients compared with individuals who were not infected?
is there a relationship between altered sleep and impaired executive functioning in COVID-19 patients?
is such relationship related to altered prefrontal brain activitity in COVID-19 patients?

Full description

While impaired executive functioning has been often reported in association with COVID-19 contagion, it is still unclear whether, and to what extent, executive deficits might be explained by an altered quality of sleep, that been also frequently reported in COVID-19 patients. On this basis, this project aims to investigate executive functioning abilities (primary outcome) in patients hospitalized for a COVID-19 contagion, while distinguishing between those with and without sleep fragmentation (quality of sleep; secondary outcome), compared with an age- and education matched control group of healthy individuals who did not experience contagion. To this purpose, 38 COVID-19 patients and 38 healthy controls will be administered questionnaires and cognitive tasks aimed to assess: a) executive functioning/inhibitory control (GoNogo task); b) quality of sleep (NOSAS; Insomnia Severity Index; Epworth sleepiness scale). Prefrontal electrical activity will be recorded with EEG in COVID-19 patients, and related to sleep and cognitive-executive metrics. Statistical analyses will be aimed to investigate: a) a possible decrease of executive skills in COVID-19 patients compared with healthy controls, and in COVID-19 patients with fragmented sleep compared with those with normal sleep; b) possible differences in the relationship between executive performance and quality of sleep across the three experimental groups; c) whether possible differences in such relationship relate to prefrontal brain activity in patients. The results of this study will provide novel insights into the consequences of COVID-19 at the cognitive level, thus informing about treatment strategies.

Enrollment

76 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18+ years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

For patients: current contagion from COVID-19
For patients and controls:
age>18 years
absence of clinical conditions, cognitive and sensory deficits, and severe psychiatric disorders that would impair participation in research identified through clinical history.

Exclusion criteria