Neuropsychiatric Manifestations of COVID-19: A 2022 Update

Abstract: At last year’s annual meeting, our team presented a live workshop on the acute and chronic neuropsychiatric effects of COVID-19 that was well-attended and one of the most downloaded sessions of the meeting. One year later, consultation-liaison psychiatrists around the world continue to wrestle with the effects of the pandemic, and the volume of research on the topic has expanded significantly. While the Omicron variant was associated with lower rates of hospitalization and death overall, we continued to care for patients with delirium and other psychiatric manifestations of acute infection, and there is no evidence thus far that patients infected with Omicron are any less susceptible to post-acute COVID syndrome.





This year, we will again present an overview of acute and chronic neuropsychiatric complications of infection with SARS-CoV-2, with a focus on new literature that has emerged over the past year. As before, all members of our workgroup remain actively involved in research related to COVID-19 and will present updated findings from their own work in addition to reviewing the recent literature. We hope that presenting this as a live symposium will allow for a rich Q&A discussion.





Scott Beach, MD, is the Program Director for the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency and an attending psychiatrist on the MGH CL service. He will review acute neuropsychiatric complications of COVID, focusing on recent neuroimaging findings regarding brain changes in the setting of COVID, as well as providing an update on the unanswered questions regarding the risk of psychosis in acute COVID as well as ongoing report of catatonia and akinetic mutism.





Erica Baller, MD, is an inpatient CL psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania and a post-doc in neuropsychiatry. Dr. Baller will provide an update on our current understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms for involvement of the central nervous system by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She will address the controversy in the field regarding the contribution of direct viral load on CNS symptoms, and review new literature supporting the neuroinvasive potential of the virus.





Durga Roy, MD is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Neuropsychiatry clinic and is collaborating with the Johns Hopkins Post-COVID-19 care clinic. Dr. Roy will review clinical findings, phenomenology and longitudinal studies of long COVID, proposed neurocircuitry of brain fog after COVID, and potential treatment modalities.





Davin Quinn, MD, is Vice Chair for Adult Clinical Services and a CL psychiatrist at the University of New Mexico who is currently studying patients with chronic cognitive symptoms after COVID using neurodiagnostics including EEG, fNIRS and fMRI. He will present some preliminary data as well as review possible pathophysiology and suggested workup for patients with Long COVID.