Objectives: To assess resting-state functional connectivity and exploratory cognitive vulnerability in pediatric survivors of severe COVID-19 compared with healthy pre-pandemic controls. Introduction: Pediatric neurocognitive sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 infection remain poorly characterized. Methods: We conducted an observational case–control study including 14 children hospitalized for severe COVID-19 and 31 healthy pre-pandemic controls scanned on the same 3T MRI system using identical rs-fMRI protocols and a standardized CONN/SPM pipeline. ROI-to-ROI connectivity was analyzed with cluster-level FDR correction ( P < .05). Results: Post-COVID participants showed 3 altered connectivity clusters: increased Default Mode–visual medial coupling, stronger dorsal attention–sensorimotor anticorrelations, and enhanced temporo-occipital–vermis connectivity. In an exploratory subset (8 post-COVID, 12 controls), 50% of post-COVID children had abnormally low Timeliness and 25% low Impulsivity MOXO-d-CPT z -scores, whereas no controls were abnormal. Conclusion: These preliminary findings suggest subtle post-infectious cognitive vulnerability and warrant confirmation in larger longitudinal cohorts.
Rojas-Lemus et al. (Sun,) studied this question.