Treatment of COVID-19 Post-acute Cognitive Impairment Sequelae With tDCS

After almost 2 years of pandemic, the consequences of the post-COVID syndrome, or PASC (Post Acute-Sequelae of Sars-CoV-2), have become a major challenge in the management of affected patients, generating costs for health services. and insecurity regarding treatments for the sequelae, given the complex and still poorly understood pathophysiology of COVID-19. This troubling scenario raises important questions about the impact of COVID-19 on central nervous system sequelae, including the risk of cognitive decline in old age and progression to dementia. Therefore, studies that propose the possibility of treatment for this new clinical condition and that are free from systemic side effects, such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and cognitive treatment, are extremely important in the face of this scenario. In addition, the evaluation of the neural mechanisms underlying the cognitive alterations of the PASC syndrome and after the treatment using multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) becomes relevant in view of the lack of studies related to the topic. Therefore, the objective of this double-blind randomized clinical trial is to assess whether tDCS associated with cognitive training can improve symptoms in patients with persistent cognitive deficits that started between 1 and 6 months after the resolution of acute COVID-19 infection (PASC) compared to the sham (placebo) group, in addition to exploring the structural, microstructural, functional and modeled electric field changes associated with cognitive alterations due to PASC syndrome and tDCS combined with cognitive treatment. 60 patients aged between 18 and 70 years and with a positive diagnosis of mild to moderate COVID-19 in the last 6 months in relation to the time of entry into the study will be recruited. All of them will be pre-screened online and in person to confirm the cognitive dysfunction associated with PASC.