Blackmon, Karen, Day, Gregory S, Powers, Harry Ross et al. · BMC neurology · 2022 · DOI
Many people recovering from COVID-19 report trouble thinking clearly or remembering things. This study tested 102 COVID-19 patients (some who were hospitalized, some who weren't) within about 3-4 weeks of infection to see how common these cognitive problems really were and what might cause them. The researchers found that while most patients felt foggy-headed, people who had been hospitalized showed more measurable problems with memory and thinking speed than those who recovered at home.
For patients experiencing long-term cognitive symptoms after COVID-19 (a condition that overlaps with ME/CFS symptoms), this study validates that objective cognitive testing—not just subjective complaints—should be used to diagnose and track brain function problems. Understanding whether psychiatric symptoms like anxiety and depression drive cognitive impairment, versus being consequences of it, is crucial for developing targeted treatments. The finding that hospitalized patients show different cognitive patterns than ambulatory ones suggests that severity and type of acute infection may influence post-viral cognitive sequelae, an important consideration for understanding post-viral ME/CFS mechanisms.
This study does not establish whether cognitive impairment persists beyond the sub-acute recovery phase or whether it resolves with time. It cannot prove that anxiety, depression, and fatigue *cause* cognitive deficits in ambulatory patients—the association could be bidirectional or mediated by an unmeasured factor. The small sample size (particularly 26 hospitalized patients) limits generalizability, and the cross-sectional design cannot distinguish between pre-existing cognitive vulnerabilities and acute infection effects.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Blackmon, Karen, Day, Gregory S, Powers, Harry Ross, Bosch, Wendelyn, Prabhakaran, Divya, Woolston, Dixie, et al. (2022). Neurocognitive screening in patients following SARS-CoV-2 infection: tools for triage.. BMC neurology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-022-02817-9
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-blackmon-2022-neurocognitive-screening,
author = {Blackmon, Karen and Day, Gregory S and Powers, Harry Ross and Bosch, Wendelyn and Prabhakaran, Divya and Woolston, Dixie and Pedraza, Otto},
title = {Neurocognitive screening in patients following SARS-CoV-2 infection: tools for triage.},
journal = {BMC neurology},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1186/s12883-022-02817-9},
note = {PubMed: 35907815},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/blackmon-2022-neurocognitive-screening},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/blackmon-2022-neurocognitive-screening
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