At-home brain test may predict risk of viral disease

More erratic attention and reaction times than usual may put you at higher risk of viral illness, according to new research.

“We all know when we’re stressed and when we’re not. slept enoughProfessor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan scientific report.

“This is the first exposure study in humans to show that cognitive performance before exposure to a respiratory virus can predict the severity of infection,” he says.

Subtle changes in daily cognitive performance may indicate changes in brain conditions known to increase the risk of diseases such as stress, fatigue and exhaustion. Lack of sleepThe team wanted to measure cognitive function and investigate whether it could predict immune performance after exposure to respiratory viruses. Gender has been found to be highly predictive.

The team studied a cohort of 18 healthy volunteers who underwent brain function tests three times a day for three days before being exposed to a common cold virus known as human rhinovirus. The software provided 18 measures of cognitive function, including reaction time, attention, and rapid switching between numbers and symbols, which were combined to derive an index of variability.

“At first, because we used the raw scores, we did not find that cognitive function was significantly associated with disease susceptibility. is closely associated with immunity and susceptibility,” said Yaya Zhai, a recent Ph.D. in bioinformatics and lead author of the study. She and Hero led the development of the Cognitive Variation Index.

The team assessed viral shedding by flushing the participants’ nasal passages with saline. They determined the presence of viral infection and the amount of virus in the fluid by growing the virus in cell culture. For symptoms, we used the Jackson His score, in which participants rated themselves from 1 out of 8 for her to 3 for his. cold symptoms.

“This is an interesting observation from a relatively small study,” said Ronald Turner, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia who conducted the experiment.

The team is optimistic that smartphone use could ultimately help identify when people are more susceptible to illness by monitoring cognitive metrics such as typing speed and accuracy and how long users sleep. am.

said P. Murali Doraiswamy, director of the Neurocognitive Impairment Program at Duke University School of Medicine. Neurocognitive testing part of the study.

“At home, regular cognitive monitoring through self-test digital platforms is the future of brain health assessment,” says Doraiswamy.

The study was part of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to find out whether it can predict a soldier’s susceptibility to disease. Jeffrey Ginsberg, then Professor of Applied Genomics and Precision His Medicine at Duke University, led the project and also led a delegation of teams to analyze blood samples for biomarkers that could indicate susceptibility to disease. bottom.

The experiment also uncovered several genetic markers that may indicate compromised immune function, which the team may investigate further in future studies.

Hero is also a professor of engineering, a professor of biomedical engineering, and a professor of statistics. Zhai is currently a data his scientist at VivoSense Inc. Ginsburg is currently the Chief Medical Science Officer for his All of Us research program at the National Institutes of Health. Doraiswamy is Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine and a consultant at Lumos Labs. Lumos Labs provided access to his Neurocognitive Performance Tests online, but was not involved in the study conduct process or report publication.

The University of Michigan and Duke University have applied for patent protection for their Cognitive Variation Index.

sauce: University of Michigan