ABSTRACT
Background: Face masks are widely used in daily life because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study was to explore the impact of wearing face masks on brain functions by using resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI). Methods: Scanning data from 15 healthy subjects (46.20 ± 6.67 years) were collected in this study. Each subject underwent RS-fMRI scans under two comparative conditions, wearing a KN95 mask and natural breathing (no mask). The amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and functional connectivity under the two conditions were analyzed and then compared using the paired t-test. Results: Compared with those of the no-mask condition, the ALFF activities when wearing masks were increased significantly in the right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral precuneus, right superior marginal gyrus, left inferior parietal gyrus, and left supplementary motor area and decreased significantly in the anterior cingulate gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, bilateral lingual gyrus, and bilateral calcarine cortex (p < 0.05). Taking the posterior cingulate cortex area as a seed point, the correlations with the occipital cortex, prefrontal lobe, and motor sensory cortex were sensitive to wearing masks compared with not wearing masks (p < 0.05). Taking the medial prefrontal cortex region as a seed point, the functional connectivity with the bilateral temporal lobe, bilateral motor sensory cortex, and occipital lobe was influenced by wearing a KN95 mask (p < 0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that wearing a KN95 face mask can cause short-term changes in human resting brain function. Both local neural activities and functional connectivity in brain regions were sensitive to mask wearing. However, the neural mechanism causing these changes and its impact on cognitive function still need further investigation.
ABSTRACT
Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which can be transmitted from person to person. As of September 21, 2021, over 228 million cases were diagnosed as COVID-19 infection in more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. The death toll is more than 4.69 million and the mortality rate has reached about 2.05% as it has gradually become a global plague, and the numbers are growing. Therefore, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of the genome and protein characteristics, clinical diagnostics, pathogenic mechanisms, and the development of antiviral drugs and vaccines against the novel coronavirus to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The traditional biology technologies are limited for COVID-19-related studies to understand the pandemic happening. Bioinformatics is the application of computational methods and analytical tools in the field of biological research which has obvious advantages in predicting the structure, product, function, and evolution of unknown genes and proteins, and in screening drugs and vaccines from a large amount of sequence information. Here, we comprehensively summarized several of the most important methods and applications relating to COVID-19 based on currently available reports of bioinformatics technologies, focusing on future research for overcoming the virus pandemic. Based on the next-generation sequencing (NGS) and third-generation sequencing (TGS) technology, not only virus can be detected, but also high quality SARS-CoV-2 genome could be obtained quickly. The emergence of data of genome sequences, variants, haplotypes of SARS-CoV-2 help us to understand genome and protein structure, variant calling, mutation, and other biological characteristics. After sequencing alignment and phylogenetic analysis, the bat may be the natural host of the novel coronavirus. Single-cell RNA sequencing provide abundant resource for discovering the mechanism of immune response induced by COVID-19. As an entry receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) can be used as a potential drug target to treat COVID-19. Molecular dynamics simulation, molecular docking and artificial intelligence (AI) technology of bioinformatics methods based on drug databases for SARS-CoV-2 can accelerate the development of drugs. Meanwhile, computational approaches are helpful to identify suitable vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection through reverse vaccinology, Immunoinformatics and structural vaccinology.