Daily brain examinations may reveal how well the immune system can cope with future viral infections.
According to a study led by researchers at the University of Michigan (UM), Decreased immune performance It tends to be closely associated with periods of fluctuating cognitive performance.
During the first few days of the 8-day study, 3 times a day, 18 Participants tested attention, reaction time, and ability to switch between numbers and symbols. On the fourth day of the study, the group was intentionally exposed to human rhinovirus (HRV), which commonly causes the common cold.
During the remaining days, participants self-administered nasal washes to measure the presence and amount of shed viral cells.
Volunteers were also asked to rate their experience of eight symptoms, including chills, cough, headache, nasal congestion, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, and fatigue.
Ultimately, who dropped out the most virus Those with the worst symptoms tended to have inconsistent cognitive scores in the days leading up to illness.
“Initially, we did not find that cognitive function was significantly associated with disease susceptibility because we used raw scores.” To tell Yaya Zhai, a bioinformatics researcher at UM.
“But when we then looked at changes over time, we found that cognitive fluctuations were closely linked to immunity and susceptibility.”
In other words, a one-time test is probably not enough to determine the state of a person’s immune system. But trends in cognitive performance measured over days can be the ticket.
The study’s authors acknowledge that most people are unlikely to take cognitive tests three times a day for the rest of their lives. But their results still showed strength when only her five tests were considered. – Only if you are tested at least once a day starting 3 days before infection.
In the real world, you never know when the next virus will hit you. This means that brain testing probably needs to be done semi-regularly to predict future immune responses. A regular method has not yet been determined.
The current study is small and only suggests a possible relationship between cognitive function and a healthy immune system. Further studies in larger cohorts are needed to validate the results.
Until now, scientists studying brain function and health have relied on raw cognitive scores.But new research suggests that the ups and downs of the brain test retain more information than the test alone.
impressive 19 years of researchFor example, we found that if a person’s reaction time showed higher variability on the test, that person was at higher risk of falls, neurodegenerative disease, and death.
The authors of the current study hope that one day ordinary people will be able to easily access and track brain tests using their smartphones.
For example, information about an individual’s typing speed, typing accuracy and sleep duration can be combined with attention and memory tests to better predict when the risk of serious illness increases.
Precautions can then be taken to reduce exposure or ensure the body’s defenses.
“Traditional clinical cognitive assessments that look at raw scores at a single time point often don’t give a true picture of brain health.” I will explain Neuroscientist P. Murali Doraiswamy at Duke University.
“At home, regular cognitive monitoring through self-test digital platforms is the future of brain health assessment.”
This research scientific report.
