ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1612548
Two Neurocognitive Domains Identified for Patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19
Provisionally accepted- DePaul University, Chicago, United States
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Patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) often have neurocognitive complaints that involve memory and concentration problems and difficulties paying attention. Other neurocognitive domains such as hypersensitivity to noise and light have rarely been included as aspects of neurocognitive impairment for these post-viral conditions. The current study evaluated a more extensive list of neurocognitive items for a group of 2,313 patients with ME/CFS and 299 patients with PASC. Exploratory factor analyses found two factors for each patient group, one involving classic memory and concentration symptoms and the other involving sensory overload phenomena. The findings suggest that researchers might consider expanding the types of self-report neurocognitive symptoms among patients with these post-viral illnesses.
Keywords: neurocognitive, Hypersensitivity, salience network, Myalgic encephalomyelitis, PASC/ Long Covid, Factor analyses, brain fog, Default Mode Network
Received: 15 Apr 2025; Accepted: 02 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sandoval, Li and Jason. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ariadna E Sandoval, DePaul University, Chicago, United States
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