Long-term impacts of COVID-19 on systemic inflammation and control of breathing reflexes: an observational cohort study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in over 7 million reported deaths and over 700.4 million reported infections to-date. Many individuals who recover from COVID-19 report prolonged dyspnea, sometimes persisting for months. Furthermore, COVID-19 has been linked to systemic and neuronal inflammation which may have downstream impacts on the neural control of breathing. Therefore, we hypothesized that individuals recovered from COVID-19 may exhibit changes in their ventilatory chemosensitivity to carbon dioxide and hypoxia, and that these changes may be linked to systemic inflammation.

Methods

To test this hypothesis, we measured baseline ventilatory patterns and chemoreflex sensitivity in individuals recovered from COVID-19 (n = 77) and individuals with no prior COVID-19

SUBMITTER: Penuelas VL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12908332 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature