The Impact of COVID-19 on Auditory and Visual Choice Reaction Time of Non-hospitalized Patients: An Observational Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Physiology, Velammal Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Madurai, India

2 Consultant Physician, St. Joseph Hospital, Dindigul, India

Abstract

Background and aim: COVID-19 is a multi-system infectious disease. There is accumulating evidence showing the damage caused by the virus on a nervous system other than the lungs. It is still unknown whether this Central nervous system (CNS) complications are reversible. Reaction time indicates neuronal activity, and an increase in RT denotes defective neural function. Hence the present study was done to measure the impact of COVID-19 on auditory and visual reaction time during COVID-19 disease, four and eight weeks after recovery.
Material and methods: ART and VRT were measured using discriminatory and choice reaction time apparatus. Results were analyzed using an unpaired t-test. The study involved 86 participants of both genders aged 21-40. Forty-six were acute, mild COVID-19 positive patients and 40 were healthy (control) subjects.
Results: During COVID-19 disease, a statistically significant increase in visual reaction time (VRT) values for both green and red colours (p<0.001) and ART (p<0.001) were observed in the study group when compared with the control group. After 4 weeks of recovery, a significant increase in VRT (p<0.05) for both the colours and ART (p<0.05) were observed compared with control, but the values were lesser when compared with during COVID-19 disease in the study group. After 8 weeks, no statistically significant difference (p>0.2) was observed between both groups. No gender difference was detected.
Conclusions: Increased RT values indicate that COVID-19 affects the nervous system. The decline in RT values after 4 weeks and normal values after 8 weeks of recovery shows improvement in nerve function.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

[1]  Wu Y, Xu X, Chen Z, Duan J, Hashimoto K, Yang L, et al. Nervous system involvement after infection with COVID-19 and other coronaviruses. Brain, behavior, and immunity. 2020;87:18-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.03.031.
[2]  Mao L, Jin H, Wang M, Hu Y, Chen S, He Q, et al. Neurologic manifestations of hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in Wuhan, China. JAMA neurology. 2020;77(6):683-90. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2020.1127.
[3]  MadaniNeishaboori A, Moshrefiaraghi D, Ali KM, Toloui A, Yousefifard M, Hosseini M. Central nervous system complications in COVID-19 patients; a systematic review and meta-analysis based on current evidence. Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. 2020;8(1):e62.
[4]  Wadoo OK, Syeed SI. Comparative Study of Simple and Choice Visual Reaction Time in Young Adults. IJRR. 2019;6:337-40.
[5]  Balakrishnan G, Uppinakudru G, Girwar Singh G, Bangera S, Dutt Raghavendra A, Thangavel D. A comparative study on visual choice reaction time for different colors in females. Neurology research international. 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/301473.
[6]  Abdullahi A, Candan SA, Abba MA, Bello AH, Alshehri MA, Afamefuna Victor E, et al. Neurological and musculoskeletal features of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in neurology. 2020:687. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2020.00687.
[7]  Prabu Kumar A, Omprakash A, Kuppusamy M, KN M, BWC S, PV V, et al. How does cognitive function measured by the reaction time and critical flicker fusion frequency correlate with the academic performance of students?. BMC medical education. 2020;20(1):1-2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02416-7.
[8]  Jain A, Bansal R, Kumar A, Singh KD. A comparative study of visual and auditory reaction times on the basis of gender and physical activity levels of medical first year students. International Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research. 2015;5(2):124-127. doi: 10.4103/2229-516X.157168.
[9]  Son KB, Lee TJ, Hwang SS. Disease severity classification and COVID-19 outcomes, Republic of Korea. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2021;99(1):62-66. doi: 10.2471/BLT.20.257758.
[10] Benton AL. Interactive effects of age and brain disease on reaction time. Archives of Neurology. 1977;34(6):369-70. doi:10.1001/archneur.1977.00500180063013.
[11] Benton A. Reaction time in brain disease: Some reflections. Cortex. 1986;22(1):129-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(86)80037-5.
[12] Firbank MJ, O'Brien JT, Taylor JP. Long reaction times are associated with delayed brain activity in lewy body dementia. Human brain mapping. 2018;39(2):633-43. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23866.
[13] Ismail II, Salama S. Association of CNS demyelination and COVID-19 infection: an updated systematic review. Journal of Neurology. 269:541–576. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-021-10752-x.
[14] Piramanayagam P K, Thenmozhi R. A study of sensory nerve conduction and reaction time between the chronic alcoholics and non-alcoholics. International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research 2016;3(7):2090-2093.
[15] Guerrero JI, Barragán LA, Martínez JD, Montoya JP, Peña A, Sobrino FE, et al. Central and peripheral nervous system involvement by COVID-19: a systematic review of the pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, neuropathology, neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and cerebrospinal fluid findings. BMC infectious diseases. 2021;21(1):1-5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-021-06185-6.
[16] de Mello LJ, Silva EG, Rabelo GO, Leite ME, Vieira NR, Bahadori M, et al. Neurologic compromise in COVID-19: a literature review. Journal of Neurology Research. 2020;10(5):164-172. doi: 10.14740/jnr619.
[17] Solanki J, Joshi N, Shah C, Mehta HB, Gokhle PA. A study of correlation between auditory and visual reaction time in healthy adults. International Journal of Medicine and Public Health. 2012;2(2):36-38. DOI:10.5530/ijmedph.2.2.8.
[18] Rajprabha, Mahima Sharma, Sudhanshu Kacker, Anamika Tomar. Reaction Time and Academic Performance: An Association to Determine The Cognitive Status of First Year Medical Students. Int J Med Res Prof.2019; 5(4):56-60.
[19] Shenvi DH, Balasubramanian PA. A comparative study of visual and auditory reaction times in males and females. Indian journal of physiology and pharmacology. 1994;38(3):229-231.
[20] Koumpa FS, Forde CT, Manjaly JG. Sudden irreversible hearing loss post COVID-19. BMJ Case Rep. 2020.
[21] Graham EL, Clark JR, Orban ZS, Lim PH, Szymanski AL, Taylor C, et al. Persistent neurologic symptoms and cognitive dysfunction in non‐hospitalized Covid‐19 “long haulers”. Annals of clinical and translational neurology. 2021;8(5):1073-85. https://doi.org/10.1002/acn3.51350.
[22] Gidari A, Nofri M, Saccarelli L, Bastianelli S, Sabbatini S, Bozza S, et al. Is recurrence possible in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? Case series and systematic review of literature. European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases. 2021;40(1):1-2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-020-04057-6.
International Journal of Scientific Research in Dental and Medical Sciences
Volume 4, Issue 1
March 2022
Pages 21-25

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 03 January 2022
  • Revise Date: 16 February 2022
  • Accept Date: 03 March 2022

Share

How to cite

Statistics