Peripheral Tissue Biomarker for Premorten Diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia

Abstract This supplemental application will examine the effects of COVID-19 on the disease severity and changes in diagnostic biomarkers of Lewy body dementia (LBD) affecting 1.4 million people in the U.S. Recent studies have shown that patients with dementia are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection, however, the effects of COVID- 19 infection on the severity and progression of dementia has yet to be systematically examined. Further, it is unclear how overlapping symptoms between Lewy body diseases and those reported for COVID-19 including anosmia and various neurological symptoms might further complicate clinical evaluation and diagnosis of LBD. We will address this research question by testing patients with LBD for active or prior COVID-19 infection and examining changes in clinical manifestations and diagnostic biomarkers. Within the scope of our parent R01 award and in response to the NIH Notice of Special Interest (NOT-NS-21-037), we propose to consider COVID-19 status as a biological variable in our human subject studies on LBD with concomitant biomarker assessments, to be accomplished in two aims. Aim 1 will examine if COVID-19 infection alters disease severity and progression in LBD patients. LBD patients will be tested for current and prior COVID-19 infection and undergo standardized clinical assessments and neurological evaluations for parkinsonism, cognitive decline, and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Aim 2 will assess changes in diagnostic tissue and neuroimaging biomarkers in LBD patients affected by COVID-19 infection. Our proposed research will provide molecular and neurophysiological insights into the effects of COVID-19 infection on clinical progression of LBD, with the ultimate goal of guiding preventative and therapeutic interventions.